Agentic AI is no longer experimental.
AI systems are beginning to act independently — initiating workflows, accessing systems, modifying data, and interacting across environments without direct human prompting. As organizations embed these autonomous agents into business operations, a new security question is emerging:
How do you establish identity, accountability, and trust for systems that act on their own?
This is the foundation of agentic AI security — and it’s quickly becoming central to digital trust.
Why Agentic AI Changes the Security Model
Traditional automation followed scripts. Agentic AI makes decisions.
These systems can operate continuously, execute complex tasks, and scale actions faster than any human team. That efficiency is compelling. But autonomy also expands the attack surface.
In a recent Keyfactor survey, 69% of cybersecurity professionals said AI-based vulnerabilities — including weaknesses in AI agents and autonomous systems — will pose a greater threat to their organization’s identity and security systems than human misuse of AI in the coming year.
Security teams are no longer just defending against users and malware. They are defending against AI-driven adversaries — while simultaneously governing AI-driven actors inside their own environments.
That dual pressure is reshaping enterprise security strategy.
AI Agents as Trusted Entities
Enterprises already manage trust across employees, contractors, partners, devices, and workloads. Each identity has defined permissions, oversight, and accountability.
AI agents now need to be treated the same way.
As IBM Consulting’s Dinesh Nagarajan explains in a recent conversation on digital trust, organizations must begin thinking about AI agents as trusted entities within their environments. In the next three to five years, we’ll see agents creating other agents, operating with varying levels of autonomy, and interacting directly with critical systems.
Without strong identity controls and governance, those agents can become targets themselves — spoofed, manipulated, or granted access beyond their intended scope. When that happens, the impact isn’t isolated. It cascades.
Governance Must Evolve as Fast as Autonomy
Most existing security programs weren’t designed for autonomous systems operating at machine speed. Traditional defenses provide a baseline, but they don’t address the complexity of AI-driven workflows that can trigger infrastructure changes or access sensitive data automatically.
To adapt, organizations are modernizing identity frameworks, strengthening cryptographic foundations, and rethinking governance models. Human oversight remains essential, particularly for traceability and assurance. But governance must also include built-in identity, least-privilege access, observability, and automated controls that scale with AI.
When identity, access control, and assurance are foundational rather than reactive, compliance with frameworks like HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS becomes far more achievable.
The challenge isn’t whether enterprises will adopt agentic AI. It’s whether digital trust will evolve quickly enough to support it.
Want the Full Conversation?
This post only scratches the surface.
In Digital Trust Digest: The AI Identity Edition, IBM Consulting’s Dinesh Nagarajan shares a practical, grounded perspective on:
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How AI agents are reshaping enterprise security strategy
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Why weak AI governance can erode your entire security posture
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What successful identity and cryptographic modernization looks like
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How to design human-in-command governance models
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Foundational steps to secure AI agents in regulated environments
If agentic AI is on your roadmap — or already in your environment — this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
👉 Read the full interview on p. 22 in the Digital Trust Digest: AI Identity Edition.
