2019 SailPoint Identity Insider Magazine - Magazine - Page 33
The dream of an AI-influenced world
is finally here. After decades of writing
about it, AI has reached a point where
it’s ingrained into our daily lives. From
the days of SmarterChild – for many,
the AIM messenger bot was the first
foray into AI – to now the ubiquitous
presence of the AI-enabled digital
assistant such as Siri, the vision of
artificial intelligence transforming
from sci-fi to reality has come to
fruition. But instead of making us
laugh at pre-programmed responses
to certain keywords or phrases, the
ways in which we interact with AI
today feel much more... well, natural.
Even simple things like automatic
notifications about increased traffic
on the commute home are normal
occurrences nowadays when they
were still a dream just a few years ago.
While many of us still use AI in rather rudimentary
ways, the potential of the technology is nearly
limitless. Imagine being able to fully automate
your morning routine. Not in the Back to the
Future Rube Goldberg-style machine making,
but say you have an early meeting one day. Your
alarm and coffee maker automatically adjust to
accommodate for your first meeting based on
your calendar, and account for the increased or
reduced travel time. It’s forecasted to rain that day,
so your phone notifies you right before you leave
to remember your umbrella.
That’s all fun and easy stuff. Now think of it in a
business setting. What if your identity platform
could learn user access behaviors and anticipate
their future needs as new apps are onboarded.
For instance, a new marketing automation tool
is onboarded and your marketing managers are
automatically granted access without the need
for someone to remember to request it for them
or update the enterprise role model – AI can do
it. Instead of a quarterly re-certification process,
entitlements are reviewed and validated on a
continuous basis, making compliance a state rather
than an activity. Over time, AI can suggest and
implement new policies to fit evolving compliance
requirements and security standards. Gigantic sets
of data – far too large for any human to process
efficiently – can be analyzed and recommendations
offered when risky behavior is spotted.
It’s Not All or Nothing
The advent of AI, though, doesn’t mean the end
of traditional security or, as some pop culture
may have you believe, the end of humanity itself.
As much as we have become dependent on AI,
it is also dependent on us. While it can learn and
adapt as its environment dictates – and in this
case, as the business evolves – it benefits most
from human input, especially when it comes to
making everyday governance decisions. Instead of
manually reviewing every access-related activity
in your organization, through an AI-enabled system
you can flag violations that need a human touch.
In addition, machine learning offers the ability to
identify and suggest low-risk manual processes
that can be automated, and gives us the ability to
put our focus and manpower on more strategic
and high-risk efforts.
But rather than hail AI as the panacea to all
our problems, we must remember AI is a tool
that augments our own capabilities. While
it can certainly enhance security and make
recommendations based on the data in your
organization, it is not the one who decides what
happens. You do. You are always in control. AI can
empower us to dig deeper than ever before in our
businesses, find the most important information,
and come out the other side smarter than before.
AI is the facilitator of the future enterprise
business and IT architecture. It will be a source of
competitive advantage, because with it, we can
be free to do more than ever before, all while
keeping the same (or higher) level of security
that we do today.
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