When Good Creds Go Bad: The New Failure Mode of AI Agents

Authenticated AI agents introduce a new failure mode. Using valid credentials, they can perform actions that are policy-compliant but semantically incorrect, such as retrieving sensitive data into the wrong context or executing unintended changes. Traditional IAM systems evaluate identity and permissions, not intent or correctness at runtime.As agents begin using valid credentials to act across enterprise systems, security teams must move beyond static identity and permission checks. This session explores contextual authorization, just-in-time access, and runtime auditability as the next layer of enterprise agent security, including what it means to verify not just who an agent is, but whether the environment it’s running in can be trusted.