Transcript
I'm a Director of Product Management here at One Identity, and I work on Identity Manager. Today, I'm going to walk you through how Identity Manager is evolving into an AI-powered identity governance platform. This is not just about adding AI features. It's about preparing for a world where identities are no longer just people, but also applications, service accounts, and increasingly AI agents. And where identity systems are not just configured by humans but operated and automated by AI. Let me start by setting some context. Identity is going through a fundamental shift. We're moving from human-centric identities to a world that includes machines, applications, and increasingly AI agents. At the same time, AI is changing how identity systems are built, operated, and automated. So I'll start there with what's changing. And I'll briefly recap on what we delivered in 10.0, because that laid the foundation. I'll walk you through our vision for governing all identity types. Then I'll connect that to what we're hearing from customers. From there, I'll take you through our AI-first roadmap themes and what we're delivering over the next 12 to 18 months. And I'll close for what that means for you in practical terms. Before I go further, a quick standard disclaimer. This reflects our current direction and priorities, but as always, details may evolve as we continue to validate with customers and partners. Before I look forward, it's important to understand what we put in place with 10.0. This release was not just about features. It was about building the foundation for where identity is going. First, we strengthened our ability to model and govern non-human identities. And that includes service accounts, applications, and increasingly the types of identities we'll see with AI agents. Second, we introduced behavior-driven governance and external risk ingestion. That's a critical step towards more intelligent and context-aware decision-making. Third, we expanded automation through intelligent threat detection and response playbooks. So we're not just detecting risk. We're starting to respond to it automatically. And finally, we continued moving core capabilities into the web experience and improving telemetry and audit. That gives us the foundation for AI-assisted experiences and better operational insights. So when we talk about AI in the roadmap, we're not starting from zero. We've already put the building blocks in place. So with that foundation in place, let's step back and look at where we're heading. Our vision is to become an AI-powered identity governance platform, one that governs not just human users, but also machines, applications, and increasingly AI agents, because identity is no longer just about employees and contractors. It's service accounts, APIs, automation, and now AI-driven entities that are acting on behalf of users or systems. At the same time, AI is changing how identity platforms are used. Instead of navigating complex interfaces, users expect systems that can guide them, explain decisions, and automate tasks. So our goal is to deliver a platform that is AI-powered in how it operates, cloud-ready and hybrid by design, frictionless to deploy and manage, and still enterprise-grade in terms of control, audit, and governance. Identity Manager and Identity Manager on Demand are evolving together towards that vision, optimized for different deployment models, but aligned in capability. So what we consistently hear from customers is that identity is getting harder to manage, and it's happening across three different dimensions. First, identity itself is expanding beyond humans. Service accounts, applications, and now AI-driven identities are growing rapidly, often faster than governance can keep up. Second, the operational burden is too high. Fragmented experiences, complex onboarding, connector maintenance, and upgrade, they all risk and they all add to friction. And third, there's a lack of visibility at scale. Customers are often reacting to issues rather than proactively managing them. The reality is is that identity is becoming too complex to manage manually. So I've restructured our roadmap themes to reflect the shift that we're seeing in market and hearing from our customers. This is an AI-first roadmap. At the center is the evolution of Identity Manager into an AI-powered governance platform. And this includes AI assistance that keep users and help users understand and operate the system, and an ability to govern a growing population of non-human and AI-driven identities. Around that core, we're applying AI across the platform. In user experience to simplify complex workflows. In onboarding and deployment to guide configuration and reduce setup effort. In the connector ecosystem to accelerate integration and reduce maintenance. And in operations to provide better insight and move from reactive to proactive management. Alongside that, we continue to invest in performance, reliability, and upgrade-safe tooling. Because while AI changes how systems are used, enterprise-grade stability and control remain essential. Our first theme is AI-guided user experience. And this is a core shift in the platform, and it starts with the user experience itself. Historically, Identity Manager has been very powerful, but it requires expertise to navigate and operate. What we're introducing is AI-guided experience with an in-context AI assistant embedded directly in the product. Users can understand exactly what they're looking at, what actions mean and how the system behaves. Along alongside that, we're also introducing AI-guided workflows. So instead of relying on documentation or prior knowledge, the system actively helps you guide users through tasks. And this is all delivered through a modern, consistent web experience. The outcome is faster onboarding, reduced training effort, and much simpler day-to-day experience for administrators. The second area we're focusing on is onboarding and deployment. Today, getting started, especially in our Identity Manager on-demand environments, often requires a deep understanding of the underlying system. Customers are exposed to infrastructure details very early, and this slows down the time to value and increases reliance on support. What we're changing is that model. We're introducing AI-guided onboarding and configuration. So instead of expecting users to understand how everything fits together, the system helps guide setup, validate configuration, and catch issues early. Alongside that, we're simplifying the deployment model with a lightweight agent that's only required when you need on-prem connectivity, and more setup and administration is moving into the web experience. The outcome is a much faster path to value, fewer errors during setup, and a simpler hybrid model overall. The next area is connectors, which is critical to identity governance. If integrations are slow to build or difficult to maintain, everything else becomes harder. What we're doing here is using AI to reduce that complexity. We're introducing AI-assisted schema discovery and mapping. So instead of manually figuring out how systems align, the platform can help accelerate that process. At the same time in Identity Manager on-demand, we're improving the resilience and scalability of connector execution. So environments can handle growth and peak demand more reliably. And we're laying the foundation for reusable connector assets, so customers and partners can build and share integrations more easily. The outcome is faster onboarding of systems, less maintenance overhead, and fewer operational issues. Next is performance and reliability at scale. As environments grow, performance becomes a governance concern. When provisioning is delayed or certification campaigns take too long, risk builds up quickly. So we're continuing to invest in core orchestration. And this includes optimizing job processing, improving synchronization efficiency, and strengthening distributed execution for large environments. For customers operating at significant scale, these improvements are critical to maintaining predictable throughput and stability. And importantly, this foundation also enables everything else that we're doing. As we introduce more AI-driven capabilities, the platform needs to be able to operate reliably and at scale underneath. So this is about ensuring that the system can support both current workloads and future automation. Next area is operational visibility and governance insight. And again, there's a lot of opportunity for AI here. Historically, many customers have had to build their own monitoring and reporting around Identity Manager. Now, that creates inconsistency and additional operational overhead. So what we're doing is we're introducing more standardized telemetry layer, and that will start in Identity Manager. With structured metrics, health dashboards, and a clearer visibility into system behavior. But this ability isn't alone enough. As non-human identities grow, service accounts, applications, and AI-driven identities require the same level of governance and accountability as human users. So we're extending governance analytics and introducing proactive monitoring, such as alerts for expired data. Over time, this is where AI plays a bigger role, not just showing data, but helping interpret it, surfacing risk and guiding action. The outcome is earlier issue detection, stronger accountability, and fewer operational surprises. So customization has always been a strength of Identity Manager. And it's a great tool to help you Customization has always been a strength of Identity Manager. Many customers have built highly tailored workflows, rules, and integrations. But that flexibility has also made upgrades complex and sometimes risky. So what we're doing here is making customization more upgrade safe by moving towards more declarative template-based configuration, reducing reliance on scripting, and introducing database snapshot and rollback capabilities. The goal here is to make upgrades predictable and controlled rather than a multi-month project. And over time, this is another area where AI can assist, helping customers understand the impact of changes, identify potential risk before upgrade, and guide safer transitions. So this is about protecting long-term investments while making it easier to adopt new capabilities as the platform evolves. The final theme is about an AI automated platform. Everything I've talked about so far applies AI within the product to simplify experience, onboarding, integration, and operations. This theme is different. It's about enabling AI to interact with and operate the platform itself. As we see the rise of agentic AI, systems are no longer confined and configured by humans. They are increasingly operated by AI assistants and agents. For that to work, Identity Manager needs to provide a structured and reliable interface. So we're standardizing APIs aligned to core identity workflows and providing consistent patterns for automation and integration. But the goal is not APIs for their own sake. The goal is to make Identity Manager operable by AI. So over time, automation becomes faster to build, easier to reuse, and more consistent across environments. This is what enables a broader ecosystem of partners and customers and AI-driven solutions to build on the platform. Let me translate the themes that you've just heard into a timeline. Over the next 12 months, we're sequencing this deliberately. In the near term, AI starts delivering value directly into the product with an in-context AI assistant, AI-guided onboarding and configuration, and improved visibility and governance for non-human identities. At the same time, we're simplifying deployment At the same time, we're simplifying deployment and improving upgrade safety so customers can adopt these capabilities more easily. Then in the following phase, we expand and scale AI across the platform with broader AI-guided workflows, smarter connectors, deeper operational insight, and stronger automation capabilities. So this is not a future vision. AI starts in the near term and then expands across the platform over time. So what does this mean for you in practice? Well, for administrators, it means a much simpler experience with AI-assisted guidance, less manual effort, and faster task completion. For organizations, it means faster time to value with guided onboarding, easier integration, and more predictable operations. It also means better visibility and control, not just over human users, but across service accounts, applications, and other non-human identities. And importantly, it means a platform that remains stable and reliable with strong performance, safer upgrades, and protection of long-term investment. But more importantly, it positions Identity Manager for what's coming next, a world where identity systems are not just configured by humans, but increasingly operated and automated by AI. This roadmap is about making you sure you're ready for that shift. So Identity Manager 10.0 laid the foundation. This roadmap builds on that by applying AI across the platform, simplifying the experience, reducing operational effort, and improving visibility and control, preparing you for a world where identity systems are increasingly operated by AI. This is about making identity governance scalable, sustainable, and future-ready. I'm very excited for what's ahead, and I very much look forward to working with you on this journey.
