Oktane 2025 recap: Identity as the foundation of AI security
At Oktane 2025, Okta’s core message was unmistakable: “AI security is identity security.” This theme was prominent throughout the week’s sessions and launches, underscoring how identity now anchors security for people, systems, and AI alike.
In the past, non-human identities like AI agents, bots, and service accounts often had unfettered access with little visibility or control, making their activity difficult to track and secure. As Todd McKinnon, Okta’s CEO, framed it in his keynote: “AI agents are your next insider threat.”
That line captured the message perfectly: AI entities are no longer just external tools working on your behalf; once they’re provisioned with access, they effectively sit inside your organization’s walls.
Okta’s core message reframes these non-human identities (NHI) as first-class citizens on par with human users, signaling a new era in which every identity, whether human or AI, is subject to the same security, governance, and trust standards.
AI is everywhere — both as an accelerator for productivity and as a new attack surface. Organizations are seeing a surge in AI-powered fraud: synthetic identities, deepfakes, and automated social-engineering that overwhelm legacy defenses. Securing who (or what) is accessing your systems has never been more critical.
Persona is honored to support Oktane 2025 and thrilled as we continue to partner with Okta in leading and shaping the role that identity plays in this new AI security era.
Here are three of our biggest takeaways from the event:
1. Build an identity security fabric to tackle the modern threat landscape.
Okta introduced the concept of an identity security fabric: a layered, interconnected approach that weaves identity controls across the entire enterprise.
The fabric is built on three components:
Core identity products that secure access pre-, during, and post-authentication
Orchestration that ties signals together and automates authentication decisioning and workflow triggers
Integrations that connect identities (human, non-human, AI) with the resources they access
This “fabric” metaphor highlights that modern security isn't about isolated tools stitched together after the fact; it's about creating a continuous, interwoven layer where every thread strengthens the whole.
By contrast, legacy defenses often resembled a patchwork of point solutions — MFA here, VPN there, a separate bot detection tool, and siloed logging systems duct-taped together. Each tool might address a narrow risk (which is important), but they don’t always share data seamlessly or work together in unison. This leaves gaps attackers can exploit, forcing IT teams into reactive response mode and making it both expensive and challenging to scale your security.
The identity fabric flips that model on its head. Instead of stitching tools together, it assumes every identity — human, AI, or system — is a first-class entity whose context travels with it. Persona has always believed in a layered approach. Persona provides critical identity verification and fraud prevention capabilities that establish trust from the first interaction. Our platform seamlessly integrates with Okta's ecosystem to ensure that only verified users have access to your company’s network.
Takeaway: The future of security isn’t stitched together; it’s woven together. Identity needs to be dynamic, adaptive, and continuous. Persona's identity verification and fraud prevention capabilities give security and IT teams additional tools to make the identity security fabric stronger.
2. Build AI security through identity security.
AI is going beyond transforming productivity and reshaping the entire security landscape. On one side, AI agents are helping teams automate workflows, accelerate decision-making, and augment security operations. On the other side, attackers are weaponizing AI to scale fraud at unprecedented speed and sophistication.
Okta showcased how they’re sewing AI agent identities into the security fabric: providing governance, visibility, and lifecycle management for non-human actors. This approach to AI agent identities acknowledges that AI entities deserve the same security rigor as humans.
If you can’t trust the identity behind an AI — whether it’s an internal agent or a fraudulent synthetic identity — you can’t trust the system. Persona employs a variety of techniques and tools to protect against AI fraud, and provide your teams with confidence around the identity of the person behind the screen.
Persona's AI fraud defense arsenal for workforce identity verification includes:
Deepfake detection and prevention using various identity verification methods, including government ID checks, selfie verification, and database verification
Multi-layered fraud defense that combines identity-proofing evidence with behavioral risk assessments and passive signals
Real-time risk segmentation that immediately identifies and responds to potential fraud
Compliance with NIST IAL2 standards ensuring enterprise-grade security requirements are met
Takeaway: AI will continue to accelerate both innovation and fraud. Organizations that don’t anchor their defenses in identity risk being outpaced by those who do. Identity is the guardrail that ensures AI amplifies trust rather than undermines it.
3. Secure your onboarding process from day zero.
Finally, Oktane underscored that identity security must start from “day zero”. As Okta’s blog on identity proofing for new hires notes, the onboarding moment is one of the most critical points of vulnerability in the employee life cycle.
Given the ever-changing threat landscape, it’s becoming an increasing security imperative to verify trust the moment someone transitions from outsider to insider. That handoff when new hires are provisioned with accounts and gain access to systems is often the last chance to get identity right. Persona is already helping companies secure their IAM programs, and we're continuing to evolve our capabilities to protect against insider threats. As Okta's Director of Insider Threat, Liam Dermody, said in the session "Identity Under Siege: How to Protect Your Workforce from Phishing, Deepfakes, and Insider Threat":
We construct our workforces to verify when somebody goes from an outsider to an insider, when that moment we're starting, we're giving them their accounts, they're coming in, they're onboarding, that's our last chance to get it right.
This perspective makes the stakes crystal clear: Secure onboarding is no longer just an HR milestone; it’s a security imperative and a signal to employees that trust and safety are foundational to their work experience. And this is exactly where identity verification comes in to help detect and deter threat actors before any high-risk moments that create vulnerability gaps.
Takeaway: Strong security starts at “hello.” If you don’t verify and secure identity at the first touchpoint, you’re already behind.
Persona recognized as Rising Star Partner of the Year
Oktane wasn’t just about exploring the future of identity. It was also about celebrating the ecosystem driving it forward. We’re proud to share that Persona was recognized as Okta’s Rising Star Technology Partner of the Year.
This recognition reflects our commitment to helping organizations verify, secure, and trust identities in an increasingly complex landscape — from onboarding to ongoing life cycle management. We’re excited to continue partnering with Okta to deliver identity-first security for the modern era.
Looking ahead
Oktane 2025 made one thing clear: the future of security is identity-first. As enterprises grapple with emerging governing AI agents, weaving stronger identity fabrics, and securing every stage of the user journey, identity is becoming the main security perimeter as the attack surface expands rapidly.
From our conversations with security and IT teams at the conference, we continue to hear about the need to build higher identity assurance for enterprise organizations. This general sentiment validates our mission to anchor security in identity, and to help organizations build trust from the very first interaction and across every identity touchpoint.
Contact our team to learn about our Workforce IDV solution and discover how Persona can help you layer in IDV to your existing security stack and safeguard both your business and users.
