The 30 second story
You know how your company gives each employee a login card or password to access different systems? Okta, the login management platform that many large companies use, is now building the same thing for AI workers. Todd McKinnon, Okta’s CEO, says businesses will soon need to track and control what their automated systems can access, the same way they manage human employee permissions. The company has not announced pricing for these AI identity features or confirmed UK availability yet.
Why it matters
Your business might already use automated tools to handle invoices, answer customer emails, or update spreadsheets. Right now, these tools probably run under someone’s personal login or a shared company account. That creates a security headache when you need to change what the automation can do, or when the person who set it up leaves. As businesses add more AI workers to handle routine tasks, each one needs its own digital identity with specific permissions. This lets you grant an AI invoice processor access to your accounting system but not your customer database, then change those permissions instantly if something goes wrong.
What this means for your business
- Security becomes easier when each AI tool has its own login instead of sharing human accounts
- You can shut down a misbehaving automation without affecting other systems or people
- Tracking what happened becomes clearer when AI actions appear under specific identities instead of generic accounts
- Adding new automated tools gets faster when the identity system already exists