Imagine walking into your next board meeting and saying, “We need to secure all the non-humans.”
You can probably picture the reactions: furrowed brows, confused glances—not exactly a solid foundation for fostering an effective identity and access management (IAM) strategy. But lately, there’s been a lot of discussion about all-encompassing terms like non-human identity (NHI). But, in the end, the two actors and their identities that matter today on the Internet, clouds and enterprise networks are humans and machines. And soon, a third actor: AI agents.
In theory, the term NHI is meant to represent the expanding universe of identities that aren’t people (including machines). In practice, however, it’s too vague to be useful—and far too risky to anchor your security strategy. Especially now that machine identities—everything from API keys and TLS certificates to service accounts and AI agent identities—outnumber humans by more than 80 to 1. If unsecured, each of these machine identities represents a potential access point, a privilege escalation path or a breach waiting to happen.
That’s why it’s time to stop trying to secure everything that isn’t human. Instead, focus on the non-human identities that matter: machine identities.
Machine Identity vs. NHI: This Isn’t Just Wordplay
Some may argue that the machine identity vs. non-human identity debate is just semantics.
It’s not.
The contention is around strategic clarity. NHI is a broad, marketing-driven umbrella that lumps everything from workloads to bots to RFID-tagged livestock, and even legal entities and extraterrestrials into the same category. It creates the illusion of inclusivity while eroding the precision security teams need.
Here’s the crux of the debate: Yes, all machine identities are non-human identities. But not all non-human identities are machine identities.
Security can’t thrive on ambiguity. It needs specificity. And in today’s enterprise, machine identities are the NHIs that matter. These, to name a few, include:
- The TLS certificates authenticating billions of secure connections
- The API keys and access tokens securing access to clouds and APIs
- The new universal identities, like SPIFFE certificates, granting access to today’s apps and tomorrow’s cloud native services
Attackers know this. But does the broader security community?
The Real Risks Machines Pose
Machine identities power modern infrastructure. But they also introduce real, growing risk.
Consider:
- Credential theft: Compromised API keys or service accounts often become the first domino in lateral movement. It’s how the U.S. Treasury breach unfolded just a few months ago.
- Secrets sprawl: Organizations now manage thousands—sometimes millions—of certificates, tokens and SSH keys. Unmonitored, they become liabilities.
- Misconfiguration exposure: Machines move through development, staging and production, sometimes without a unique identity at each stage.
- AI at scale: Autonomous agents don’t just follow a prompt. They act. If they’re not uniquely identifiable and tightly controlled, they pose machine-speed threats.
Treating all these as generic NHIs is like diagnosing every medical condition as a “non-health event.” It’s not just imprecise. It can be dangerous.
Why Zero Trust Requires Precise Machine Identity Security
Zero Trust is the modern gold standard for cybersecurity strategies. But it only works when you know exactly what you should “never trust, always verify”—and why.
Machine identity security supports that model with:
- Granular policy enforcement: Define access based on identity types—containers, workloads and IoT/OT devices—not a vague, non-human label.
- Cryptographic verification: Use certificates and keys to verify machine identities in real time.
- Continuous auditing: Trace, account for and, when needed, revoke any machine action, anytime.
Broad categories like NHI can’t deliver that level of fidelity. But precision is the prerequisite for Zero Trust.
Managing Agentic AI: The Need for Control
Now, consider what happens when we layer in agentic AI—the next exponential complexity shift for identity security. These systems create, learn, adapt and act independently. They spin up new workloads. They call APIs. They can even manage other identities.
In other words, they’re digital coworkers with admin rights and zero chill.
If something goes wrong, what’s your plan? You need a way to isolate behavior, revoke access and roll back to the latest, safest version. Fast.
That’s only possible when every AI agent has a unique, verifiable identity. Without it, you’re left guessing: was that error from a valid agent, a spoofed token or a compromised credential?
When threats move at AI speed, guesswork won’t work, but it will accelerate risk.
Looking Ahead: AGI and the Rise of Hybrid Identities
As we inch closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI), the divide between human and machine identities will only continue to blur.
IAM programs will need:
- Hybrid identity frameworks that blend behavioral analysis and cryptographic trust.
- Real time controls for agentic AI systems.
- New accountability models that track intent, not just action.
But we can’t leap into that future on a foundation built on buzzwords. To get there safely, we need the precision and control of machine identity security.
Verdict: Own the Identity. Own the Advantage.
This is about more than debating terminology. It’s about choosing clarity over confusion—strategy over spin. Machine identities aren’t just a subset of the problem. They’re the core control point for today’s infrastructure and tomorrow’s intelligent systems. It’s why leading industry analysts are prioritizing machine identity, and global IAM teams are rapidly building expertise in this area.
So, if you’re building Zero Trust programs, deploying AI or securing hybrid environments, don’t start with “non-human.” Start with specific, secure and scalable machine identities. Start with the non-human identities that matter.
Because when you know what a system is, what it’s allowed to do and how to shut it down if things go sideways?
You don’t just reduce risk. You take back control.
Kevin Bocek is senior vice president of innovation at CyberArk.
