Identity governance company Omada has acquired EmpowerID, adding real-time authorization for AI agents to a platform that already manages access rights for employees and other non-human identities.
The acquisition combines Omada’s identity governance and administration software with EmpowerID’s runtime controls. Identity governance systems generally establish who or what can access a resource and require periodic review of those permissions. Omada says the combined platform will also make access decisions when an agent requests a resource, using current policy and risk information rather than waiting for a later synchronization or audit.
Omada describes a common record of identities, entitlements and relationships across connected enterprise systems. Under its plan, administrators would be able to discover AI agents, assign ownership, review what tools and data each agent can reach, and restrict an agent at the point of access. The controls are intended to apply to human users, applications, workloads and agents within the same governance process.
The company launched an Agent Governance offering in June. The EmpowerID acquisition adds runtime authorization to that earlier work. Omada says it will record grants, reviews and authorization decisions as they happen, creating an audit trail alongside the access-control process. The combined product is intended for enterprise access management, with controls spanning employees, workloads and software agents.
EmpowerID co-founder and chief executive Patrick Parker will join Omada as chief innovation officer. He is expected to lead development and support the integration of EmpowerID’s agent-governance technology. Omada chief executive Jakob H. Kraglund said the goal is to stop agents when they attempt actions outside permitted boundaries, rather than identifying the problem only after activity is logged.
The deal comes as identity vendors add controls for autonomous software. Okta recently expanded agent authentication and delegated-access functions, including controls for connections between agents and recurring reviews of their permissions. In financial services, Baselayer introduced an identity suite for agents and the people or organizations they represent. Omada’s stated approach centers on governing enterprise entitlements and enforcing authorization when an agent actually makes a request.
For an organization using Omada, the planned integration would place agent discovery, ownership, permission review and runtime control in one system. Parker’s appointment gives the acquired team a direct role in building that combined product.
Sources: Omada
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
