Saviynt’s 2026 Outlook Puts Identity at the Core of AI Risk

Saviynt has released a new report, 2026 Identity Security Trends & Predictions, warning that enterprise AI adoption is moving faster than the structures designed to control it.

Drawing on perspectives from company leadership, the report highlights exposure driven by agentic risk, manual governance, and weak visibility into non-human access.

The implications should resonate with SAP customers. Autonomous services can inherit broad privileges across tightly connected finance, supply chain, and operational systems, even as role complexity already strains oversight. Saviynt argues that identity architecture will decide how far automation can expand without undermining control.

1. Attackers Will Target Autonomous Identities

AI agents are becoming durable, privileged participants in enterprise systems. Many operate continuously, inherit broad access, and lack the lifecycle discipline long applied to employees and partners.

Saviynt warns that attackers are already adapting techniques such as prompt injection and model manipulation to exploit those conditions. “Organizations are already facing identity targeting, automated attacks, and sophisticated AI-driven kill chains,” said Vibhuti Sinha, Chief Product Officer at Saviynt. Governance built for people must now extend to software.

2. MCP Becomes a Critical Control Point

Machine Connectivity Protocol, or MCP, defines how agents connect directly to enterprise applications, tools, and data. The model allows systems to exchange instructions without waiting for human approval, expanding both speed and responsibility.

Saviynt argues that these machine pathways now represent high-value control points. Jim Routh, Chief Trust Officer at Saviynt, said, “Agents and MCPs must be part of identity security to control how agents interact with systems and what controls are required.”

MCP credentials must be governed like any other privileged access route.

3. AI Exposure Reopens the Data Governance Problem

AI compresses discovery time. Information that once sat buried in collaboration sites, archives, and shared drives can surface instantly through automated queries.

Saviynt says agents inherit both intentional and accidental permissions, which means historical over-provisioning becomes immediate exposure. “AI tools are excellent at correlating large amounts of data in a very short amount of time,” said David Lee, Field Chief Technology Officer at Saviynt.

Excess access becomes a risk the moment an agent can use it.

4. AI Drives the Next Phase of Zero Trust

AI accelerates activity across environments. Controls that depend on separate tools and delayed signal sharing struggle to keep pace when decisions happen at machine speed.

Saviynt argues that identity must become the connective layer linking detection, response, and enforcement across platforms. “AI will serve as a driving force for zero-trust architectures,” said Lee. The requirement is consistency.

Every action must be verified with the same context, regardless of where it originates.

5. AI Pushes Identity to the Center of Security

Identity defines who or what can act. As autonomous workflows expand, that decision point becomes the foundation for trust across enterprise systems.

Saviynt says AI introduces new exposure while also offering the scale required to close long-standing governance gaps. “Identity has the potential, and the duty, to become the operating system and resilience mechanism of the AI era,” said Henrique Teixeira, SVP of Strategy at Saviynt.

Leadership implications follow quickly. Organizations that treat identity as infrastructure gain a path to scale automation with confidence.

Production AI Demands Structural Governance

Across the enterprise technology market, AI is moving from pilot to production.

SAP environments now sit inside expanding constellations of services, copilots, and autonomous agents that request data, trigger transactions, and influence outcomes without waiting for human mediation.

Saviynt places identity at the center of this transition, and broader industry signals point in the same direction. Composable architectures, API-driven integration, and best-of-breed extensions are multiplying both human and machine actors, while governance models still reflect earlier assumptions about manual initiation and periodic review.

That tension is likely to surface first in systems of record. Agents performing reconciliations, order adjustments, or planning updates will inherit the strengths and weaknesses embedded in existing role designs, segregation models, and service accounts.

The challenge is structural. Organizations must decide whether identity stays administrative or becomes continuously enforced infrastructure.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

• AI exposes authorizations never designed for autonomy. Role frameworks assumed identifiable users and periodic validation. Persistent agents turn inherited access into immediate financial and regulatory exposure.
• Integration architecture is becoming security architecture. Every connector, service account, or automation endpoint carries authority inside systems of record. Design decisions increasingly determine whether least privilege is achievable in practice.
• Agent scale will outrun existing governance models. Work crosses finance, supply chain, and operations while accountability remains segmented. Control evidence must travel with identities rather than remain trapped in applications.