Human vs. Non-Human Identities

Logan Saso·Staff Software Engineer·2 min

Understand how human and non-human identities differ, and why AI agents and tools are dramatically increasing the identity footprint you need to secure.

Main Takeaways

Human identities are the people behind the keyboard like employees and contractors.
Traditional non-human identities were mainly service accounts that run 24-7 and hold credentials and access just like humans.
In modern environments, AI introduces a new class of non-human identity: agents that read data, make decisions, and act through tool calls.
Each AI agent and every tool it interacts with carries its own credentials, leading to identity counts that scale into the thousands even at mid-sized companies.
Managing humans, service accounts, and AI agents together is essential to keeping an organization secure.