Security for non-human identities
Govern the identities you can’t see
Gain complete visibility and control over the fast-growing world of machine accounts, bots, and AI agents.
Challenge & solution
Discover your biggest identity blind spots
While standard NHIs follow procedures, they are still tough to track as they spread across your environment. AI agents make this worse: they have no set procedures, are created instantly by employees, and inherit credentials that quietly expand your blast radius.
Bring your NHIs under control
- Discover every identity: Automatically find and classify non-human identities across your entire technology stack.
- Establish clear ownership: Assign every bot, service account, and AI agent to a human owner for accountability.
- Govern the full lifecycle: Manage identities from creation to retirement with automated policies and controls.
- Reduce your attack surface: Eliminate orphaned accounts and excessive permissions to close dangerous security gaps.
- Strengthen compliance: Bring non-human identities into your access review and audit processes seamlessly.
- Expose and remediate shadow AI: Identify unapproved AI tools across your organization and who is using them to quickly address emerging security risks.
Benefits
See and secure every identity
Take control of the non-human identities that power your business. SailPoint provides an adaptive, unified approach to discover, manage, and secure every service account, bot, and AI agent. This gives you the confidence that every identity—human and non-human—is accounted for and secure.
Find and take action on every non-human identity
You can't protect what you can't see. Automatically discover and catalog non-human identities wherever they exist, eliminating blind spots and creating a centralized, authoritative inventory. From there, take action to reduce cyber risk, close security gaps, and ensure every non-human identity is properly governed.
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Related resources
Go deeper on AI agent and machine identity security
faq
Answers for your non-human identity questions
What is a non-human identity?
A non-human identity represents an entity like a service account, bot, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), or AI agent that requires access to perform automated tasks. These identities are essential for business operations but lack the built-in lifecycle and ownership of human identities, making them a unique security challenge.
Why are non-human identities a security risk?
They are often created outside of formal processes, granted broad permissions, and forgotten over time, creating a hidden attack surface. Attackers target these "unowned" accounts to gain access, escalate privileges, and move through an organization's network undetected.
How is governing an AI agent different from a standard bot or service account?
While all are non-human, AI agents introduce new complexities. They can act autonomously, make decisions, and interact with data in non-deterministic ways. Governing them requires understanding their unique behaviors, the tools they use, and ensuring they operate within secure, predefined boundaries.
How does SailPoint establish ownership for an identity that has no human user?
Our platform allows you to assign one or multiple human owners—such as an application owner or a team lead—to every non-human identity. This creates a clear line of accountability for access approvals and periodic reviews, ensuring no identity is left unmanaged. Built-in succession planning ensures ownership can transition seamlessly when roles change, so no non-human identity is ever left unmanaged.
Can I manage both my human and non-human identities in one place?
Yes. SailPoint Identity Security brings together SailPoint Human Fabric and SailPoint Agentic Fabric to govern human, non-employee, machine, and agent identities within one unified experience. This enables consistent policy enforcement, streamlined access certifications, a complete view of access risk across your entire organization for humans and machines alike, and allows for complete lifecycle control through a single governance platform. This unified approach reduces complexity, closes security gaps, and simplifies compliance across all identity types.
How does non-human identity governance support compliance?
Non-human identity governance supports compliance by providing visibility, accountability, and auditability for automated access. By maintaining a centralized inventory of non-human identities, assigning clear human ownership, and tracking access changes over time, organizations can demonstrate control over how systems and processes access sensitive resources. Regular access reviews and documented lifecycle actions create an auditable trail that helps satisfy regulatory requirements and reduces friction during audits.
Does securing AI just mean managing non-human identities?
Managing non-human identities is a critical foundation, but a comprehensive strategy must also account for how your employees interact with unsanctioned AI tools. Our platform provides this complete picture, securing both your formal AI agents and the "shadow AI" landscape created by human activity, ensuring no risk is left unseen.
What is shadow AI, and how can I find it?
Shadow AI refers to AI agents, tools, and applications adopted without IT or security oversight. SailPoint Agentic Fabric discovers unmanaged agents and credentials across cloud environments and endpoints, maps them to human owners and the data they can reach, and brings them under governance. Start with the free SailPoint Discovery Tool to see what's in your environment today.
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Secure identities hiding in plain sight
Discover how a unified, adaptive approach to identity security can help you govern every bot, service account, and AI agent with the same confidence as your human workforce.