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Secure AI identities with runtime authorization

AI agents move fast. Delinea keeps pace. Every action is authorized in real time and tied to a named identity, whether an agent is guided by a person or running entirely on its own.
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Challenges with securing AI identities

  • No consistent ownership or lifecycle governance
  • Limited visibility into shadow AI, external model usage, and dependency chains
  • Rapid model and tool changes that outpace manual reviews and deprovisioning
  • Large, diverse, externally sourced datasets susceptible to poisoning

AI agents act autonomously. Access stays broad.


An AI agent doesn't just respond, it acts: querying data, invoking APIs, executing commands, often without a person reviewing each step. That autonomy is what makes it different from a single-purpose AI tool, and what makes access so hard to scope.

Most agents inherit the same broad access as the person who deployed them. There's no way to scope it to the task, so an agent that oversteps can reach far more than it should.

Problems surface only after an agent has already acted. By then, the damage is done.

Once an agent is running, security teams can't always determine what it did, or who's accountable for it. That's a gap, not a record.
  

  • How runtime authorization works

    Delinea moves policy enforcement to where the agent is working, not just the gate it enters through.
  • Not just at the gate.

    Delinea sits inside the connection itself. Agents reach databases, SSH hosts, Kubernetes clusters, and cloud consoles directly, not only through an MCP server. Every one of those connections runs through Delinea.

  • Not treated like a human session.

    Delinea identifies whether a connection is agent-driven or human-driven before granting access and applies agent-specific policy accordingly.

  • The agent never sees the credential.

    Delinea injects it at the network layer, just-in-time and scoped to the task. When the task completes, the credential is revoked automatically.

  • Not authorized once and forgotten.

    Every tool call, query, and command inside a session is evaluated and authorized individually, before it runs. A single session can carry dozens of actions, each with its own level of risk.

  • No shared or anonymous accounts.

    Every action ties to a specific identity, whether that's the person directing the agent or the dedicated service account it runs under. This creates a defensible audit record.

44%
of organizations say their architecture is fully equipped to secure AI
90%
of organizations place pressure on security teams to loosen access controls to support AI-driven automation
73%
of organizations agree that standing access for non-human identities and AI agents increases risk

Remove standing access, remove the risk.

Standing access for AI agents is a risk. Runtime authorization removes it.

  • Nothing to steal, even if the agent itself is compromised.

    The agent never holds a credential. Access is scoped to a single task and revoked the moment that task ends, so there's nothing standing for an attacker to find.

  • Keeps AI deployment moving instead of slowing it down.

    Policy is enforced automatically and in real time, so security isn't the bottleneck standing between an agent and the systems it needs to reach.

  • Turns AI adoption into something security teams can stand behind.

    Every action ties to a named identity and gets recorded, so when something goes wrong, there's an answer, not an excuse.

  • Extends a platform already proven at scale.

    The same platform governing privileged access across thousands of enterprise environments now governs AI agents connecting to those same systems.

Take the next step with runtime authorization

Delinea authorizes every AI agent action in real time and ties it to a named identity, across every protocol an agent uses. Security teams get a way to approve AI adoption, not slow it down.
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AI identity resources

The High Stakes of Securing AI

A concise guide for security leaders on mitigating AI threats by securing machine identities, managing credentials, and enforcing least privilege access. 

Download the eBook
It’s guardrails, not gates, that balance AI innovation and security

View examples showing how new uses of AI can cause companies to skip identity security safeguards, risking breaches and non-compliance. 

Read the blog
Unlocking AI Agents with Delinea MCP Server

Learn how to secure AI agents with Delinea Model Context Protocol (MCP) by protecting secrets, enforcing identity, and enabling safe, auditable access across AI-driven and automated workflows.

Read the blog