Four identity vendors shipped agent-specific IAM within three weeks. Microsoft's Entra Agent ID launched January 20. Cloud Security Alliance released MAESTRO framework January 15. Qualys shipped Agent Grant January 6. Exabeam rolled out Agent Behavior Analytics earlier that month.
Traditional IAM expects identities to last months or years. Agents live seconds or minutes. Legacy systems track human credentials. Agents operate through delegation chains nothing was built to monitor.
Security audits keep finding thousands of ungoverned agent identities already running. Some organizations hit 17 agents per employee. Vendors watched the same pattern repeat: customers discovering agent sprawl they never authorized, never tracked, couldn't govern with existing tools.