AI Agents Expand Enterprise Identity Counts Beyond Human Users

AI agents operate autonomously and require credentials to access systems and execute tasks without direct human oversight. Organizations that once managed human identities now face a growing population of non-human identities created by developers and automated processes.

A survey of 109 cybersecurity professionals at RSA Conference 2026 found that machines and non-human identities outnumber human users by a 92-to-1 ratio in many enterprise environments. Only 28 percent of organizations reported full visibility into these identities across cloud, on-premises, and SaaS environments.

More than 40 percent of respondents said they had experienced a security incident involving non-human identities or credentials in the past year. Another 32 percent were unsure whether such an incident had occurred.

Non-human identities do not follow the same usage patterns as human accounts. An AI agent accessing systems at unusual hours may not trigger the same alerts that would flag a human user. 5 million API authentication tokens. Researchers from Wiz found that anyone with those tokens could impersonate or take control of agents with access to internal systems such as Slack and email.

Security teams are advised to begin with a full inventory of existing non-human identities. Once visibility is established, organizations can apply least-privilege access and move toward just-in-time permissions rather than standing credentials. Dormant identities should be identified and decommissioned as a routine practice.

Non-human identity security intersects with data protection, regulatory compliance, and operational risk management.