In what should be a symbiotic relationship, identity security has instead struggled to keep up with the rapid evolution of technology. Though the gap isn’t yet the cause of most security incidents, Verizon’s latest Data Breach Investigations Report revealed, after all, that 60% of breaches are still human-related, organizations might never catch up if they don’t take advantage of innovation. Quickly.

Part of the issue is that technology isn’t the only thing that impacts enterprise identity security.

There are so many more (and more types of) identities now; employee identities are only part of the picture. In fact, human-related breaches that involved third parties doubled year over year, according to the same Verizon report.

Plus, there are countless more non-human identities that enterprises must properly govern.

On top of everything else, the landscape for app use has changed. Not only are apps located on-premises, in the cloud, at the edge or a hybrid mix, but there are countless apps in use in every organization.

As enterprises adopt new capabilities such as AI, identity practices and solutions must, too, if organizations are to remain secure.

But too often, identity solutions lag behind, and enterprises suffer.

Identities and apps, hiding in the shadows

We’ve spoken with hundreds of global companies, and what we found was troubling. On average, 70 to 80% of applications are ungoverned, operating outside corporate purview and drastically increasing organizational risk. In fact, according to a survey by WalkMe, the average large enterprise believes its employees use 37 different apps on average.

But the problem of app sprawl is far worse than many organizations realize. Seventeen times worse.

The survey found that employees are actually using an average of 625 apps, 170 of which are AI-based. Similarly, we found that the number of non-human identities operating outside governance policies has increased by 45%. This doesn’t even include all the workforce and external identities that the organization may not know about.

The fact is: organizations can’t protect what they can’t see.

Meanwhile, identity security programs are growing in size and complexity themselves: the average enterprise has half a million certifications across hundreds of apps every cycle. Simultaneously, they must combat outside pressures. It’s no wonder programs are struggling to scale…at least the way they’re doing things now.

Making intelligent improvements

What’s clear from all this is that identity security needs help.

But simply throwing more humans and resources at the problem only goes so far. Humans make mistakes, especially when overwhelmed. As it’s often said, “to err is human.” Verizon’s report echoes this: 25% of breaches were due to human error in 2023.

“Enterprises need a better way to surmount these challenges. Attempting to solve the same problems in the same ways won’t get them where they need to be. Organizations need something more scalable, smarter, and programmable.”

Enter AI. No matter how mature an identity security program is, an intelligent identity security platform can help organizations become far more efficient. Make more intelligent decisions faster. Surface information that would have likely never been found otherwise. Reverse a stagnating or declining identity security program. Secure and govern AI agents and models used by the organization.

Starting smartly

When enterprises incorporate intelligence from the very inception of their identity security program, they put themselves on a path to success few can rival.

“The most crucial step is setting up full visibility. With an intelligent identity security platform such as Saviynt integrated with the right sources, enterprises can see and govern all identities: internal and external, human and non-human.”

Similarly, organizations can discover all apps and systems,, including those listed within configuration management databases (CMDBs), so all hardware, software, servers, and other devices in the organization’s tech stack are identified and governed.

As the business grows, AI can discover more as identities, apps and systems are added.

This helps prevent the identity security program from falling behind, since it will always scale and adapt to additional infrastructure and the number of identities within the enterprise.

Combating stagnation and reversing degradation

For organizations past the initial ramp phase, all hope is not lost.

Intelligent identity has a place in every identity security program, helping to avoid simply “keeping the status quo” or worse, degrading.

Like those ramping their identity program, organizations can deploy AI processes and models to proactively identify applications. Even the ones that are homegrown and undetectable through most normal means. This ensures that new additions are onboarded as soon as they’re procured, in addition to discovering those that already exist, reducing shadow IT and its associated risks.

It’s important to note that doing this will decouple app onboarding from the identity team and instead give the power to application owners.

But the practice has a massive upside: preventing bottlenecks.

Scaling is all about efficiency; with app owners supported by agentic AI, organizations can ensure informed decision-making and eliminate manual processes, becoming more effective through delegation.

Don’t worry; agentic AI doesn’t have the same downfalls as primitive RPA bots, which many organizations are used to.

These models learn more effectively and have intelligent error handling and basic reasoning to help prevent logic loops and misconfigurations. It also provides comprehensive data signals, using peer groups, activity, SoD conflicts, regulation compliance (e.g., SOX criticality), and more to help approvers and reviewers understand if an identity should have access.

Represented through a custom “trust score” and based on the weights each organization sets, users now have pertinent, AI-powered data to onboard more apps more quickly than before, while making access to reviews and recertifications easier.

As a result, the business reduces rubberstamping, increases revocations and lowers organizational risk in one fell swoop.

Now that all applications, homegrown or not, are integrated with the identity security program, user access reviews for even the most “off-the-grid” apps are automated. Ultimately, users, the whole organization, really, are also much more productive, saving time and money, and driving business growth.

How to catalyze real change

“AI has limitless possibilities. When properly implemented, it helps organizations see what they never could before, and at a much quicker pace. And it all starts with an intelligent identity security platform like Saviynt.”

But even if you already have a not-so-intelligent platform already deployed, there are ways to clear the fog of war.

Saviynt Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM) brings useful, insightful results with AI to organizations’ identity security programs. Saviynt ISPM enables organizations to reverse course from their aging identity security programs and take on the future without hesitation.

Imagine getting real-time visibility into data trends and anomalies in your enterprise environment. Not only at the drop of a hat but proactively, as soon as an issue is detected.

Saviynt can.

Our modern identity security delivers much-needed clarity to organizations, intelligently helping them reduce risk, increase their security posture, boost productivity and more.

Learn more about what Saviynt Identity Cloud could do for your organization and request a demo here!