CIAM, Agentic AI & the Future of Identity

Customer identity and access management is becoming a business strategy as agentic AI reshapes how enterprises secure customers, partners, workforce users, non-human identities, and embedded third-party agents.

In this episode of Identity Unfiltered: CIAM Stories from the Field, Joe Miller of Thales is joined by Nate Zitel, CEO of Next Reason Identity, and James Bonifield, CEO of Appivant Identity, to unpack the biggest identity takeaways from Identiverse, the growing complexity of AI-ready CIAM, and why identity is now a security fabric problem—not just an authentication problem.

Enterprise identity and access management teams are rethinking how to support:

• CIAM strategy across B2B, B2C, partner, vendor, and external user journeys

• Agentic AI, AI agents, bots, and non-human identities in modern access architectures

• OIDC, OAuth, delegated scopes, MCP gateways, identity proofing, passkeys, authenticators, and cross-organizational delegation

What is CIAM in enterprise access management?

CIAM, or customer identity and access management, secures and manages digital identities for customers, partners, vendors, and other external users across business applications.

How does agentic AI change customer identity and access management?

Agentic AI introduces new access patterns for AI agents, bots, non-human identities, and embedded third-party agents that require stronger governance, visibility, and authorization controls.

Why are OIDC and OAuth important for AI-ready CIAM?

OIDC supports authentication and SSO, while OAuth helps govern authorization through scopes, delegated access, and controlled permissions for human and non-human identities.