Our latest evaluation of workforce identity security providers, The Forrester Wave™: Workforce Identity Security Platforms, Q2 2026, is now available!
Workforce identity security is now a strategic pillar of modern cybersecurity, driven by the expansion of nonhuman identities, increasingly sophisticated identity‑based attacks, and the operational demands of Zero Trust. Organizations already grappling with identity sprawl across cloud, SaaS, and developer environments must now contend with the scale and velocity of AI‑driven workloads. As a result, organizations are increasingly treating identity as a primary security signal and enforcement point that directly shapes organizational resilience, operational trust, and risk reduction.
Workforce identity security platforms are disrupting identity-driven attacks across the attack chain — from initial access (phishing and credential theft) to persistence (token abuse and session hijacking), expansion (lateral movement and privilege escalation), and to downstream compromise through supply chain and trusted relationship exploitation. Since our last Workforce Identity Platforms Wave, identity security posture management and identity threat detection and response have become core capabilities alongside other protective measures, such as phishing resistant MFA, just-in-time privileged access, and contextual-based access controls.
This decisive shift is reflected in our renaming of this Wave from “workforce identity platforms” to “workforce identity security platforms,” capturing the category’s evolution toward a broader, identity‑centric security control plane that governs access, surfaces risk, and detects threats; as well as supports policy enforcement across human, machine, and AI agent identities. With the goal of achieving end-to-end identity security throughout the identity lifecycle, these platforms prioritize visibility, integration, automation, and continuous risk evaluation.
Our Wave surfaced three key workforce identity security trends for security leaders seeking to modernize their IAM architecture.
Focus on the fundamentals. Modern identity security platforms are emphasizing AI‑powered insights and identity threat analytics, but analytics don’t compensate for weak foundations. Today’s identity fundamentals include identity lifecycle management to eliminate orphaned accounts, phishing‑resistant MFA to mitigate credential compromise, and identity governance to enforce least‑privilege access.
Identity intelligence. AI‑powered identity intelligence is now a defining characteristic of workforce identity security platforms. But insight alone is insufficient. Security leaders should evaluate how well identity risk signals translate into enforcement through clear response paths, including native response actions and integrations across the broader IT and security ecosystem. Identity leaders should prioritize workforce identity security platforms that can operationalize these signals through automated remediation, adaptive access controls, and real‑time policy enforcement.
Agentic AI. Organizations must now evaluate workforce identity platforms not only against current human identity requirements, but also for their ability to support the rapid evolution of agentic AI architectures. This includes native support for machine and AI agent identity governance, fine‑grained and dynamic authorization, short‑lived and purpose‑bound credentials, strong identity context, and continuous monitoring of agent actions and privilege use. Treat this as a staged capability: Plan for it now, validate what’s real today, and assume near‑term change as architecture patterns and standards evolve.
Forrester clients can read the full report, The Forrester Wave™: Workforce Identity Security Platforms, Q2 2026, for more insights on the market and the 10 providers that matter most. Use Forrester’s digital experience to tailor the evaluation to your own needs. Have questions about the evaluation’s findings or the changes happening in the workforce identity security market? Schedule an inquiry or guidance session with me.
