What are Non-Human Identity types?
Non-human identities include any digital credential that authenticates without a person behind it. The most common types are:
- Service accounts
- API keys
- OAuth tokens
- Certificates
- Workload identities
- Machine and device identities
- Automation and RPA bots
- CI/CD pipeline runners
- AI agents
In the average enterprise environment, non-human identities outnumber human identities by a ratio of 75 to 1 or higher.
How is an NHI different from a machine identity?
A machine identity is one type of non-human identity, not a synonym for it. Machine identities refer specifically to physical or virtual devices like servers, IoT endpoints, and VMs that authenticate using certificates or keys.
Non-human identity is the broader category that includes machine identities plus service accounts, API keys, workload identities, automation bots, AI agents, and application credentials. Every machine identity is an NHI, but not every NHI is a machine.
How do you discover and secure non-human identities?
Discovery starts with a comprehensive inventory across cloud, on-prem, DevOps, and SaaS environments to identify every service account, API key, token, certificate, and AI agent credential in the environment.
From there, organizations need to map ownership, assess risk, enforce lifecycle policies, and automate credential rotation.
The core challenge is that most organizations believe they have visibility but only a fraction run continuous discovery across their full NHI landscape.
Why do organizations need non-human identity governance?
Non-human identities (service accounts, API keys, tokens, workload identities, bot credentials, and AI agents) now outnumber human users by as much as 75 to 1 in modern enterprise environments. Yet most organizations manage them outside the governance and controls applied to human identities.
They operate with excessive permissions, no clear ownership, and minimal oversight, creating a growing attack surface that traditional identity programs were never designed to address.
Machine identities are now the most common path attackers take into the enterprise, and without dedicated discovery, lifecycle management, and privilege governance, the gap between what exists and what is governed widens with every new automation, cloud workload, or AI agent deployment.