Orchid Security, the company that unlocks safe AI adoption by solving identity at its core, today announced identity drift detection and application-level kill switches for AI agents. AI agents can complete authorized objectives beyond initial privilege level within seconds. AI agents do not need to break security controls or workflow guardrails. They can find and use identity debt already embedded across enterprise: hard-coded credentials, orphaned accounts, unmanaged authentication paths and excessive permissions. New AI readiness controls help enterprises scale AI adoption without losing control. Announcement was made from New York and London on September 9, 2026.
AI Adoption now board mandate. Boards moved from asking whether companies should adopt AI to asking how quickly they can scale it. Resisting no longer viable security posture. What enterprises need is defensible plan that enables adoption while keeping autonomous agents inside authorized boundaries.
"AI transformation is exciting. Identity hygiene is not," said Roy Katmor, co-founder and CEO of Orchid Security. "Boards no longer asking whether AI will be adopted they asking why it is not moving faster, and security cannot answer with blanket 'no.' Enterprises need to observe how agents act, understand when they drift, and govern them immediately, including terminating authority through which they operate."
Obstacle is not agent behavior. It is what agents inherit. Agents do not need to break security controls to exceed intended scope they find and use identity debt already embedded. Orchid Identity Gap 2026 found 57% of enterprise identity unseen and unmanaged. Agents can turn identity dark matter into active path to elevated access in seconds to minutes far faster than periodic governance reviews.
Orchid enables continuous auditable AI-Readiness: OBSERVE Discover AI agents and identities, applications, credentials, tools, access paths capturing actual behavior, not only configured in studio. UNDERSTAND Compare runtime behavior with agent original purpose and authorized scope. Applies readiness tags to applications, accounts and access paths, exposing hygiene gaps. GOVERN When behavior drifts beyond policy, Orchid orchestrates action through existing identity, security and AI infrastructure. Actions include reducing permissions, revoking credentials, disconnecting tools, suspending workflows or activating application-level kill-switch. PROVE Generates defensible audit trail linking each agent action to identity used, delegation chain, access path, business context, detected drift and resulting governance response.
Before autonomous agents deployed at scale: Identity Hygiene every orphaned, dormant, local, over-privileged account identified and assigned readiness status. Authorization Guardrails organization can determine who or what may act, on whose behalf, for what purpose, under what conditions. Runtime Understanding actual agent behavior compared continuously against approved intent. Universal Auditability every action attributed to identity, delegation chain, application, access path, business context. Enforceable Response enterprise can immediately restrict or terminate authority drifting agent operates through.
Regulators converging on same requirements. NIST draft Cyber AI Profile notes cybersecurity programs need risk management approaches that support and integrate realities of advancements in AI. In Europe, DORA obliges financial entities to demonstrate control over ICT access and third-party dependencies, obligation that does not pause because entity acting is agent rather than person.
Availability following recent agentic enhancements to Orchid Identity Control Plane in May, capabilities now available: AI readiness tagging, identity hygiene and security risk findings, continuous drift detection, orchestrated response including kill switches, audit generation.
Expanded integration ecosystem includes Palo Alto Networks Idira certified PAM integration that discovers privileged accounts not previously known to Idira and Splunk Enterprise Security prebuilt integration that streams identity telemetry to SOC.
About Orchid Security
Orchid Security sees straight into application binary to deliver industry first Identity Control Plane, transforming IAM complexity into clarity, compliance, control. Its Identity-First Security Orchestration platform continuously discovers enterprise applications, analyzes native authentication and authorization flows, accelerates onboarding into governance systems. By exposing and remediating identity dark matter hidden across modern environments, Orchid helps enterprises solve identity at its core.
