FIs should treat AI agents as employees, not tools

As AI agents are increasingly deployed by FIs in nearly every aspect of their organizations, FIs must ask themselves: Are they tools or employees? While the question may seem pedantic, the answer dictates how the FI will establish guardrails, monitor privileges and build trust. [caption id="attachment_57389445" align="alignright" width="300"] (Courtesy/Canva)[/caption] “What we need to do with these nonhuman identities (NHIs) is treat them like employees, especially the agents,” Troy Leach , chief strategy officer at the nonprofit Cloud Security Alliance , told FinAi News . “Treat them with that responsibility.” FIs should monitor an NHI’s tasks and the privileges it has been afforded, just as they would with a human employee, Navin Balakrishnaraja , chief executive of cybersecurity company Fortuna Cysec , told FinAi News . “It is very important for an organization using agentic AI in their workflow or in their applications to be aware of what is happening with those agents and [to determine] the guardrails they need to put in so that they can have complete visibility of every AI agent’s [activities],” he said. AI agents make decisions Traditional NHIs, such as static service accounts and API keys, operate by following rules: If A and B happen, the NHI will do C. However, AI agents , which are a type of NHI, can reason and adapt behavior: If A and B happen, the AI agent could do C, but it may decide that D is more appropriate, despite not having done D before. “By definition, an agent possesses agency, necessitating a machine identity with the precise context and permissions required to execute its workflow,” Nikesh Arora , chair and CEO of Palo Alto Networks , said on the cybersecurity company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call on Sept. 1. “As enterprises deploy thousands of these autonomous entities, many remain outside of formal governance, often lacking properly scoped permissions,” he said. Palo Alto Networks’ Idira solution aims to remedy this by extending “sophisticated identity security and privileged controls to AI agents, ensuring every machine action is authorized, scoped and fully auditable,” Arora said. NHI presence grows in financial sector The proliferation of NHIs in the workforce is a growing concern for the financial sector, Leach said. “There are typically — depending on what survey and study — somewhere between 90 to 120 nonhuman identities for every one human employee, and I think that number is going to skyrocket because of AI agents,” he said. With this growth, FIs need to move more quickly in establishing frameworks and classifications for their NHI use, Leach said. This includes creating a system where NHIs have the fewest privileges that still enable them to do their jobs, Douglas Buan , chief information security officer at integrated payments and merchant services provider Wind River Payments , told FinAi News . “By and large, it's the same privileges for people and nonhuman identities,” he said. “Only give them access to that which they need for business purposes. Deny everything else.” FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas, will include speakers from Fifth Third and Capital One as well as a fireside chat with U.S. Bank Senior Vice President – Lending Operations Group Manager Suzanne Rathbun . To learn more about the 2026 event and register, visit here .

FIs should treat AI agents as employees, not tools

Monitoring, restricting access for nonhuman identities promotes internal security

5 Questions with … Zack Anderson, JPMorgan’s chief data and analytics officer for payments and global banking

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FIs should treat AI agents as employees, not tools

Monitoring, restricting access for nonhuman identities promotes internal security

5 Questions with … Zack Anderson, JPMorgan’s chief data and analytics officer for payments and global banking

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