The news from Google Cloud Next '26 is exciting! Google has introduced the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, which provides autonomous AI agents with their own cryptographic identities, a significant step forward in identity security. You can read more about it here: https://lnkd.in/evEyRqWD.

But an identity alone isn’t enough. Every IAM and cloud security team now faces a key challenge: how to govern thousands of agents that spin up, act, and disappear in milliseconds?

Our traditional IAM approaches, built around human identities, won't cut it for this scale and speed. Here’s what we need to focus on:

✔️ Lifecycle at machine speed. Managing identities that might only be active for a few seconds.

✔️ Scoped permissions. A cryptographic ID confirms who an agent is, but governance defines what it can do. This helps prevent “shadow AI” scenarios with overly broad access.

✔️ Clear audit trails. Answering questions like: Who deployed this agent? What permissions were granted? When did access expire?

✔️ Just-in-time access. Ensuring permissions are granted only for the specific task and duration required.

✔️ Agents as first-class identities. It’s time to treat non-human identities as essential components of our security and compliance frameworks rather than technical afterthoughts.

Google has addressed the “who” question, but the responsibility for “what, when, and why”, governing these agents, now lies with us.

I’m interested to hear how other teams are preparing to manage this evolving IAM frontier. Let’s exchange ideas and experiences!

#GoogleCloudNext #AI #IAM #IdentitySecurity #GoogleCloud #ZeroTrust #Okta