COMPARE / AGNTID VS IAM
AgntID vs Traditional IAM for AI agents
IAM tells you who the actor is. AgntID controls what an AI agent can do the moment it calls a tool. Your IAM stack stays the identity foundation for your users and services. AgntID adds the layer that decides what an agent can do once it starts calling tools.
Identity Foundation
IAM Platform
Who is the actor?
Execution-time Layer
AgntID
What can the agent do right now?
Tool Execution
MCP Tools
Scoped, ephemeral access
The Alternative Options
Do nothing
Run agents under existing service accounts with broad standing permissions. Works today, but overprivileged agents are the single largest source of AI security incidents.
Generic policy engines
OPA, Cerbos, and similar tools evaluate authorization logic, but they don't issue scoped credentials or narrow access to the task at hand.
IAM vendor native modules
Okta, SailPoint, and similar platforms now ship agent-specific modules, but enforcement stays tied to that vendor's own directory and session model.
Our Difference
Where AgntID differs.
Traditional IAM was built for human actors with persistent sessions. AgntID was built for agents that make thousands of tool calls per task, each one a separate enforcement decision.
Execution-time policy enforcement.
AgntID evaluates task intent, tool scope, and prompt context at the moment of the tool call, not once at login.
Task-scoped, ephemeral credentials.
Every tool call gets a credential narrowed to that task, not the full standing permission set of the account.
MCP-native enforcement.
AgntID intercepts and enforces access at the MCP protocol layer, a layer traditional IAM has no visibility into at all.
AGNTID VS. THE ALTERNATIVES
Where each option fits
Each path below fits a real situation. Here's where it holds up, and where AgntID picks up the rest.
AGNTID VS. Standing Access
Standing access, best for teams before production.
Running agents under existing service accounts costs nothing to set up and holds up fine while agents only touch low-risk systems. It's the right call for teams still in early pilots, before agents write, mutate data, or face a security review.
We are best for teams who need to
- Scope every tool call to the task, not the whole account.
- Prove least privilege to a security reviewer.
- Stop a compromised agent from acting outside its task.
Service Account
Broad standing permissions
AI Agent
Full account access on every call
Overprivileged by design
AGNTID VS. GENERIC POLICY ENGINES
Generic policy engines, best for teams building custom authorization logic.
OPA and Cerbos evaluate whatever policy logic you write, and that's a good fit for teams who already have policy infrastructure and the engineering time to wire it into an agent runtime. They're the right call for teams who want full control over policy logic without adopting a new platform.
We are best for teams who need to
- Skip building the credential-issuance integration by hand.
- Enforce at the MCP protocol layer without extra plumbing.
- Get a per-invocation audit trail without instrumenting it themselves.
OPA / Cerbos
Evaluates policy logic
MCP Protocol Layer
Not covered
Requires custom wiring per runtime
AGNTID VS. IAM VENDOR MODULES
IAM vendor modules, best for teams already committed to one identity platform.
Okta and SailPoint now ship native agent modules that discover agents, govern their lifecycle, and log tool calls, including calls made through MCP. What they don't do yet is evaluate the task, the prompt, or the specific parameters an agent passes before a call executes. They decide whether an agent can reach a tool. AgntID decides whether this exact call, right now, should go through.
We are best for teams who need to
- Evaluate task intent and prompt content before a tool call executes.
- Restrict which parameters an agent can pass, not just which tools it can reach.
- Get a policy decision scoped to this call, not this session.
Okta / SailPoint
Governs agent identity and tool access
Session-level decision.AgntID
Evaluates the call itself
Per-call, per-parameter.Capability Comparison
AgntID and traditional IAM are not competing layers. They solve different problems. This table shows where each one operates and where AgntID fills the runtime gap.
| Capability | AgntID | Traditional IAM |
|---|---|---|
Identifies who the actor is AgntID defers identity to your existing IAM; it enforces what the agent can do. | Partial | Yes |
Enforces access at tool-call time Every MCP tool invocation is evaluated independently at execution time. | Yes | No |
Scoped, ephemeral credentials per task Traditional IAM issues standing tokens, not task-scoped ones. | Yes | Partial |
Runtime intent awareness AgntID can evaluate agent intent before granting access to a tool. | Yes | No |
Per-parameter policy enforcement Policies can restrict which arguments an agent may pass to a tool. | Yes | No |
Works with your existing IAM stack AgntID is additive — it does not replace your identity platform. | Yes | Yes |
MCP-native tool discovery AgntID auto-discovers tools and schemas from MCP servers. | Yes | No |
Customer-hosted deployment AgntID runs inside your infrastructure. Not all IAM vendors support on-prem. | Yes | Partial |
Full audit log per tool invocation AgntID logs every decision with full runtime context. | Yes | Partial |
Frequently asked questions.
THE ASK
Request design partner access.
Tell us where your agents are today. We'll follow up to scope a pilot and walk through what changes in your stack.