Delinea has signed a definitive agreement to acquire StrongDM, uniting privileged access management (PAM) leadership with just-in-time (JIT) runtime authorization to create a next-generation identity security platform purpose-built for the agentic AI era and continuous, always-on environments.
Enterprises today face an unprecedented surge in non-human identities—outnumbering humans in many organizations—and the rapid rise of agentic AI that autonomously performs privileged actions. Traditional PAM solutions, built for static human access, struggle to provide real-time governance, least-privilege enforcement, and visibility across dynamic, continuous workflows. The Delinea-StrongDM combination redefines identity security by merging session-based PAM with JIT runtime authorization, creating a single control plane that evaluates identity, context, and policy at the moment of action.
The integrated platform delivers:
This acquisition accelerates Delinea’s evolution toward modern, ephemeral access models suited to cloud and AI-centric environments. StrongDM’s developer-first approach and runtime controls complement Delinea’s enterprise PAM strengths, providing a scalable solution that secures privileged access without slowing innovation or business velocity.
“Stolen or lost credentials remain the number one cause of breaches, which makes identity the core control layer for modern security,” said Art Gilliland, CEO at Delinea. “This acquisition will accelerate our evolution toward modern, ephemeral access models typical of cloud and AI-centric environments, empowering organizations to secure NHIs with the same rigor applied to human access. We’re giving organizations the freedom to move faster without compromising security or control.”
“Access models designed for static infrastructure and human users simply don’t work in continuous cloud and AI-driven environments. By joining Delinea, we will deliver runtime authorization at enterprise scale, securing every privileged action through policy-based enforcement that stays invisible to developers and operators. This is identity security built for how modern enterprises actually run,” said Tim Prendergast, CEO at StrongDM.
“As AI adoption accelerates and non-human identities (NHIs) continue to outnumber human users, enterprises must secure privileged access in real-time across increasingly diverse cloud-native, hybrid, and on-prem environments,” the announcement notes, aligning with Gartner’s guidance on adopting a JIT approach to PAM to reduce risk while preserving operational continuity.
The combined platform positions Delinea and StrongDM to lead identity security in the agentic AI era, enabling organizations to govern privileged access for every identity type with precision, visibility, and agility.
About Delinea
Delinea is a pioneer in securing human and machine identities through intelligent, centralized authorization, empowering organizations to seamlessly govern their interactions across the modern enterprise. Leveraging AI-powered intelligence, Delinea’s leading cloud-native Identity Security Platform applies context throughout the entire identity lifecycle – across cloud and traditional infrastructure, data, SaaS applications, and AI. It is the only platform that enables you to discover all identities – including workforce, IT administrator, developers, and machines – assign appropriate access levels, detect irregularities, and respond to threats in real-time. With deployment in weeks, not months, 90% fewer resources to manage than the nearest competitor, and a 99.995% uptime, the Delinea Platform delivers robust security and operational efficiency without complexity. Learn more about Delinea on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube.
About StrongDM
StrongDM is the universal access management company reimagining Privileged Access Management through the Identity Firewall architecture. Built for enterprises managing explosive growth in both human and machine identities, StrongDM provides real-time authorization enforcement that governs privileged actions across infrastructure, applications, and cloud environments – not just initial access. The platform unifies traditional PAM capabilities with advanced authorization controls, evaluating identity, context, and policy to authorize or block every privileged operation. Security teams gain action-level visibility and control, while end users experience frictionless access. StrongDM enables organizations to evolve toward continuous, context-aware identity governance.
TechIntelPro empowers B2B technology decision-makers with the latest industry trends, deep insights, leadership perspectives and actionable intelligence to drive both organizational and professional milestones—and thrive on the tech pulse.