{"id":138544,"date":"2026-06-17T12:22:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T11:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/2026\/06\/17\/identity-is-the-foundation-of-ai-readiness-across-emea\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T11:37:16","slug":"identity-is-the-foundation-of-ai-readiness-across-emea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/2026\/06\/17\/identity-is-the-foundation-of-ai-readiness-across-emea\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity is the foundation of AI readiness across EMEA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Organisations across EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) are rapidly embracing AI agents to streamline workflows and boost operational efficiency. However, many are finding it difficult to establish the governance frameworks and security controls required to support these technologies effectively. Matt Ellard, General Manager, EMEA, Okta, explains why identity is emerging as the cornerstone of trusted AI adoption, enabling organisations to strike the right balance between innovation and the visibility, oversight and accountability needed to manage AI agents securely at scale.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is identity becoming the foundation of AI readiness for organisations across EMEA?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okta\u2019s Businesses at Work<\/em> report<\/a>\u00a0points to a clear shift in how organisations are adopting AI. What started with copilots and chatbots is quickly becoming more operational: AI agents that can access information, trigger workflows and take action across the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For organisations in EMEA, that creates opportunity, but also a new challenge. As AI agents become part of day-to-day operations, leaders need to know what these systems can access, what they are doing and how to govern them properly. Organisations across EMEA do not want to choose between innovation and control. They need both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why AI readiness increasingly comes down to identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What governance challenges are organisations across EMEA facing as AI agent adoption accelerates?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across EMEA, AI agents are being adopted faster than the governance models needed to manage them. This year\u2019s findings show that while 91% of organisations report they are already using AI agents, only 10% say they have a well-developed strategy in place to manage them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concern is clearly understood: 58% of organisations rank AI agent governance and oversight as their top security issue. But the controls have not kept pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That matters particularly in EMEA, where many organisations, especially in regulated sectors, are working to a higher bar on trust, transparency, privacy and accountability. AI agents are already being used to automate routine tasks, support customer service and improve internal workflows, all of which require access to systems, applications and data. Yet only 32% of organisations say they secure AI agents with the same rigour they apply to human employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For leaders across EMEA, the challenge now is to make sure governance catches up with adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why are traditional governance models struggling to keep pace with AI agents?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many organisations are trying to manage this new reality with governance models built for a different era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manual approvals and fragmented processes are difficult enough when dealing with people. They are far less effective when applied to autonomous systems operating across multiple apps and services at speed. That challenge is even greater in a region where many businesses operate across multiple markets, jurisdictions and technology environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That creates a specific risk: either security and IT teams become a bottleneck, or access grows faster than oversight can keep up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is identity critical to governing AI agents securely and responsibly?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If an AI agent can act in your environment, it needs to be governed accordingly. That means giving it a clear identity, tightly scoped access and the ability to be monitored, suspended or revoked when needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Identity gives organisations visibility into where AI agents exist, what they can access and how they are behaving. It also provides the controls needed to apply policy consistently, reduce unnecessary privilege, and support the auditability that regulators and customers increasingly expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For EMEA organisations, the goal is not to slow innovation. It is to give organisations the confidence to adopt AI responsibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the key to ensuring AI agents can be adopted safely and effectively across EMEA?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Businesses at Work<\/em> research makes one thing clear: AI agents are going to play an increasingly important role in how work gets done. The question is not whether organisations in EMEA will use them, but whether they can do so with the right guardrails in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Ellard is the Senior Vice President and General Manager at Okta, where he leads regional strategy, sales and partnerships, helping organisations strengthen security through identity-led approaches. Prior to joining Okta, Ellard led the cybersecurity consulting practice at Ernst & Young (EY), advising global enterprises on security strategy, risk management and Digital Transformation. He brings more than 25 years of experience in enterprise technology and cybersecurity, and has held senior leadership roles at Tanium, Veritas Technologies and Symantec.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organisations across EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) are rapidly embracing AI agents to streamline workflows and boost operational efficiency. However, many are finding it difficult to establish the governance frameworks and security controls required to support these technologies effectively. Matt Ellard, General Manager, EMEA, Okta, explains why identity is emerging as the cornerstone of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":138545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[809],"tags":[4374,19140,19962,22080,22680,1530,908,870,16000,3004,18404,22681,9550,19788],"class_list":["post-138544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-more-news","tag-access-control","tag-ai-agents","tag-ai-governance","tag-ai-readiness","tag-businesses-at-work-report","tag-cybersecurity","tag-digital-transformation","tag-emea","tag-enterprise-ai","tag-identity-management","tag-identity-security","tag-matt-ellard","tag-okta","tag-regulatory-compliance"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138544"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138699,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138544\/revisions\/138699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}