Challenges of AI agent identity management
AI agent authentication and identity security
Anonymous AI agents are an audit and accountability nightmare — when an agent takes an action, you need to know which agent, on whose behalf, with what permissions. Without proper AI agent identity security and authentication, every agent action is an untraceable system call.
Authorization of LLMs and AI agents
Granting AI agents 'all-or-nothing' access is the fastest path to a catastrophic incident. Fine-grained authorization restricts each agent to specific tasks, specific resources, and specific users — preventing the over-permissioning that turns helpful AI into a production-database deleter.
AI agent security at machine scale
AI agents authenticate, refresh tokens, and make API calls at orders of magnitude higher frequency than human users. Legacy IAM systems built for human-scale traffic crumble — AI Agent IAM requires identity infrastructure designed for machine-scale from the start — not human-scale IAM with agents bolted on.
When it comes to agentic AI identity, most organizations are woefully unprepared for inherent security risks and operational challenges of managing those identities.
Ory addresses your key agent use cases
Ory's API-first, composable architecture provides you with the flexibility and scale to solve your biggest challenges. Choose a solution below or build your own with Ory components.
- Zero-gap security for coding agents — Every agent. Every action. One security plane. Gain full control of your agents across AI platforms.
- Modernize APIs for agents & M2M — Transform API keys into dynamic controls for the agentic era. Replace static, over-privileged keys with hardened, non-human credentials.
- Agentic payments and e-commerce — Enable standards-based guardrails and secure token handling to allow AI agents to browse, authenticate, and process transactions entirely on their own.
- Runtime policy enforcement and tool governance — Deploy dynamic, parameter-level authorization to strictly govern how AI agents interact with live Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools and enterprise services.
Why Ory for Agent IAM?
Ory delivers AI agent identity management, identity security, and authentication for the world's most-deployed agentic systems — including OpenAI's ChatGPT.
AI agent identity security at machine scale
Ory powers identity and authentication for OpenAI, where the platform handles hundreds of millions of weekly active users including agentic flows. The same AI agent identity security infrastructure scales from your first prototype agent to production-scale autonomous workflows — no IGA-vendor performance ceiling at machine-scale token issuance.
Standards-based AI agent authentication (OAuth 2.0, OIDC, MCP)
Don't reinvent the wheel. OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) are working standards today — Ory implements all three. AI agent authentication that's compatible with every modern agentic framework out of the box.
MCP authentication today, future protocols tomorrow
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is still evolving. Because Ory is open-source and protocol-first, MCP authentication works today — and when the spec changes, you don't need to swap vendors. Future-proof Agentic AI security without vendor lock-in.
Flexible Agent IAM deployment — self-hosted, on-prem, or managed cloud
Run Ory in your own environment when AI workloads handle sensitive data, or use Ory Network for managed cloud Agent IAM when speed matters more. Same APIs, same protocols, your choice of deployment model.
Headless, API-first AI agent identity
Ory's AI agent identity APIs are decoupled from the UI — so your agents authenticate, refresh tokens, and exchange credentials programmatically without ever rendering a login page. Built for machine-to-machine workflows.
Fine-grained permissions to mitigate AI agent risk
Restrict each AI agent to specific actions, specific resources, and specific users with fine-grained authorization (RBAC, ReBAC, Zanzibar-style). Centralize agent permission policies in one place — no application-code changes needed when permissions evolve.
A really interesting journey for Lumin with Ory is that we've gone from that B2B SaaS, pretty standard kind of set up in the browser, to a full AI-enabled platform. And the complexity of those flows, we wouldn't have been able to build that without Ory.
Max Ferguson
Founder and CEO
Ory DX: Build secure apps at the speed of thought, the right way.
Ory DX is the ultimate developer toolkit that unifies AI automation with Ory’s hardened security ecosystem. By seamlessly blending Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, plugins, CLI, and Ory Elements, it gives developers a conversational, agent-led workflow to develop enterprise-ready identity, access management, and fine-grained permissions.
Deploy it your way
Self-hosted to SaaS: full control over your infrastructure, data, and compliance.
Open Source Deployment — Run and try Ory’s Open Source components with maximum flexibility. Perfect to meet your specific use-cases or proof-of-concept your next big idea. 
Ory Enterprise License
OEL Deployment — Leverage Ory's optimized code base with premium support for mission-critical production environments, on-prem, self-hosted – wherever else you need it, always up to date. 
Ory Network
Ory Network deployment — Enable your instant-on global identity system with speed, security, compliance and support for fastest time to value and lowest total cost of ownership.
Explore AI agent identity management capabilities in depth
Six core AI agent identity management capabilities every production AI agent system needs — and how Ory delivers each.
Agentic AI and MCP security (Authentication and authorization for AI agents using the Model Context Protocol)Scalability (Handle billions of agent token issuances and machine-scale authentication frequency)Multi-region deployment (Store agent identity data where regulators and customers require, with global latency)Privacy and GDPR compliance (Agent identity infrastructure that meets GDPR, CCPA, and emerging AI regulations)Zero trust architecture (Verify every agent request, every time — the security posture autonomous systems require)Fine-grained permissions (Restrict each AI agent to specific actions, resources, and users via RBAC, ReBAC, Zanzibar)
Modular and modern IAM & CIAM
Open-source powered, fully customizable Identity and Access Management solutions. Use them all or bolt-on individual solutions to satisfy your critical use cases
OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Certified® OpenID Connect server — Cloud native, security-first, headless API security for your infrastructure. 
Cloud native user management system — Provision IDs, store user information, configure authentication methods and use a headless API. 
SAML to OpenID Connect bridge and Directory Sync — API integration for Enterprise SSO and user lifecycle management based on SAML, OIDC, and SCIM-based protocols. 
Identity and Access Proxy (IAP) — Authenticate, authorize and mutate any incoming traffic, using Zero Trust / BeyondCorp as open source. 
Authorization Server inspired by Google Zanzibar — Consistent, global Authorization System, providing granular access policies with RBAC, ABAC and ACL. 
Secure API Keys — Turn static API keys into short-lived capability tokens for non human identities. Using token derivation and Macaroon tokens, it enforces strict least-privilege guardrails.
Popular Agent IAM Integrations
AWS API Gateway
Secure API front door with fine-grained authorization
AWS Infrastructure
Leverage scalable AWS infrastructure for identity management
GCP
Leverage highly scalable GCP infrastructure for identity management
GitHub App
Manage complex token issuance for GitHub Apps
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