# agentic-identity

Source: https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/agentic-identity/
Last updated: 2026-10-16
License: content by Start with Identity. Cite the source URL.

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Identity for autonomous AI agents that act on a user's behalf, call APIs, and chain tools. Requires scoped, delegated, auditable, and revocable credentials rather than the standing privileges typical of service accounts.

Agents break the assumptions IAM was built on: there is no interactive login, the agent acts for a user across several systems, and it can be created faster than any review cycle. The 2026 standards answer is a delegation chain expressed in OAuth terms, with Cross App Access adopted as the Model Context Protocol authorization extension and short-lived tokens replacing static API keys. The governance answer is still missing at most organizations: an agent with no owner, no expiry, and no place in an access review.

See also: [what is non-human identity](https://startwithidentity.com/guides/fundamentals/what-is-non-human-identity/), [service account](https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/service-account/), [token exchange](https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/token-exchange/), [AI identity vendors](https://startwithidentity.com/vendors/ai-identity/), [prompt injection](https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/prompt-injection/)