Security vendors launched agent-specific identity frameworks in early January. The timing matters. Machine identities now outnumber humans by orders of magnitude in production environments.
Every agent session creates credentials, service accounts, API keys. Each persists beyond its immediate purpose. Traditional access control assumes humans request permission, use resources, log off. Agents spawn identities continuously, operate across time zones, accumulate entitlements without natural expiration.
We think the next six months separate organizations that grasp the architectural challenge from those treating this as a monitoring upgrade. The compliance gap isn't documentation quality. Most identity systems can't answer "what can this agent actually do right now?" when you have thousands running simultaneously. That question gets harder as agents start coordinating with each other.