New research report: The state of privileged access in the AI era

As organizations adopt new AI tools and agents to drive innovation, a dynamic and less visible class of privileged access risk is rapidly emerging. How ready is your privileged access strategy for the AI revolution?

SailPoint recently surveyed enterprise security leaders to evaluate current privileged security posture management practices and future preparedness, culminating in our latest research report: Modernizing privileged access in the AI era.

The findings reveal a critical gap: While organizations strive to manage a sprawling range of privileged access, their ability to holistically discover and govern the full spectrum of privileged entitlements is lagging. This gap in legacy solutions is eroding the core principle of least privilege and putting the secure adoption of enterprise AI in jeopardy.

Select findings: The AI readiness gap

Effective privilege access management is impossible without visibility, yet the data shows security teams are struggling to see the full picture of privilege.

Our research highlights three critical challenges:

• The visibility gap: 61% of organizations admit they lack a complete, centralized inventory of their privileged entitlements.
• The non-human challenge: 55% report non-human accounts — such as service accounts, cloud entitlements, and automation tools — are now among their most difficult to govern.
• The AI readiness deficit: While 62% already see new AI agent identities in their environments, 82% do not feel fully prepared to govern them.

A shift in privilege security posture

Navigating this new landscape requires a fundamental shift in security posture. Traditional, static privileged access controls are not enough to secure a sprawling ecosystem of human, non-human, and AI agents with privileged access.

Instead, organizations must anchor their identity security strategies with a foundation of privilege visibility to protect the full spectrum of privileged access. This includes automatically discovering and classifying all privileged entitlements across the IT ecosystem, including critical business apps and data.

Explore the full report

Download the full report now to explore key insights and learn how to strengthen your privileged security posture management for agentic AI. You’ll also get proactive tips to build a modern privilege security strategy.