Identity-First AI Security: Why CISOs Must Add Intent to the Equation

AI agents in enterprises now perform critical operations like provisioning infrastructure and approving transactions, but they are often not governed as distinct identities—instead inheriting broad privileges from their creators. Traditional identity and access management (IAM, the systems that control who can access what) is insufficient because AI agents are dynamic and can take unpredictable paths to achieve their goals, so a new approach called intent-based permissioning is needed, which checks not just who the agent is but why it is requesting access and whether that purpose justifies the action at that moment.