The second day of SailPoint’s Navigate user conference opened with CEO and Founder Mark McClain noting how identity security is undergoing a profound transformation, one that would have seemed like science fiction just two decades ago.
The evolution of identity security, he said, mirrors the transformative journeys of tech giants like YouTube and Amazon. What once seemed impossible, like a video platform disrupting broadcast TV and an ecommerce company delivering groceries in near-real-time, has become today's reality.
The transformation of identity security is being driven by three fundamental shifts in the enterprise world:
- Data proliferation has moved beyond traditional application boundaries, requiring protection wherever it resides.
- The scope of identities has expanded dramatically, encompassing employees, non-employees, and machine identities.
- The pace of change has accelerated exponentially, forcing organizations to rethink their approach to identity security. "I think if you've been in this game a while, you'd agree that identity security today is actually a lot harder than it was not so many years ago," McClain noted.
This challenge comes at a time when identity security has become central to enterprise security. While the core mission remains unchanged – managing security access to all critical applications and data for every enterprise identity – the methods and capabilities are evolving rapidly.
McClain called out several emerging trends shaping this evolution:
- Non-Employee Risk Management: "All these humans that access our systems that don't carry a badge are really first-class citizens of the identity and landscape. They need to be treated just like a full-time employee when it comes to access," the CEO said.
- Data Access Security: The challenge extends beyond application-level access. As McClain points out: "It's not just about how do you access data when it lives in an app." Organizations must secure data wherever it resides, including when it's exported for analytics and other purposes.
- AI-Driven Administration: Artificial intelligence is streamlining traditionally complex tasks, with capabilities like AI onboarding helping organizations get "50, 60, 70% down the road of onboarding a new app by looking at the massive amount of data we have about onboarding 20,000 applications over the years."
- Machine Identities and AI Agents: As these technologies become critical drivers of efficiency and their effectiveness in their enterprise, organizations need clear governance and security frameworks to maintain secure operations.
The key to delivering this transformation from SailPoint’s point of view lies in what McClain calls "stagility"— a balance between stability and agility.
"The only way to do this well is to manage the tension between two things: stability and agility," McClain explains. "We have to think about what we need to hold on to and not change a lot about so you can depend on us, count on us to be there to deliver the value you need. We can't be changing everything all the time or you don't know how to react to us and the technology and what's being delivered." At the same time, organizations must remain highly agile to "anticipate and address changes that are coming in the market."
This balance is particularly crucial for future-proofing – ensuring organizations aren't caught flat-footed when new challenges emerge while maintaining the stability of existing operations.
Looking ahead, "the next chapter is dynamic," McClain emphasized. The future state is one of "frictionless access, the right people without friction should have access to what they need and only what they need at the right time, and when they don't need it, they shouldn't have it."
This vision relies heavily on the power of AI and comprehensive identity data. As McClain notes, "if anything's clear today, it is that it’s not possible to wade through all this data with human effort and things like spreadsheet. Those days are over if you're going to truly secure your environment."
