2026 marks dawn of adaptive identity era

This year was the year AI went mainstream.

- By ERIC KONG

Across industries, autonomous agents began shaping decisions and managing workflows at an unprecedented scale.Yet as AI gained speed, most organizations were still defending themselves with static, human-centric tools designed for a simpler threat landscape.

Forrester’s 2025 IAM outlook for APAC notes that machine identities have become the region’s fastest-growing and most vulnerable attack surface, accelerated by cloud-native architectures and the adoption of generative and agentic AI. As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, the challenge ahead is no longer whether they can innovate but whether they can do so securely.

In 2026 and beyond, we enter a new era that we define as Adaptive Identity, an evolution of identity security designed for the realities of AI. Identity management will no longer act as a passive gatekeeper. It will become a living, adaptive layer that continuously learns, decides and acts across every human, machine and Al interaction.

Why identity security must evolve

For decades, identity systems were built around predictable, human-driven patterns: employees with fixed roles, periodic reviews, manual approvals and static policies that changed only when people changed roles.