AI, zero trust, and shadow IT are reshaping CIO identity priorities

At a glance

What this is: This is a CIO trend roundup that argues hybrid work, cloud access, automation, and low-code adoption are reshaping enterprise security priorities.

Why it matters: It matters because the same forces are changing how teams govern human access, service access, and automated workflows across identity, privilege, and control-plane boundaries.

By the numbers:

• Only 13% of organisations feel extremely prepared for the reality of agentic AI despite the majority racing toward autonomous adoption.
• 69% of security leaders agree identity management must fundamentally shift to address agentic AI systems.

👉 Read Zluri's 2026 CIO trend analysis on hybrid work, cloud, and automation

Context

Hybrid work has turned identity control into a distributed governance problem, not just an access administration problem. The article frames CIO priorities around remote access, shadow IT, endpoint exposure, cloud permissions, and automation, all of which intersect with IAM because access now moves across users, devices, apps, and infrastructure at the same time.

For identity teams, the real issue is that older perimeter assumptions no longer match how work is done. Least privilege, Zero Trust, endpoint security, and workflow automation now have to operate together, because each trend in the article increases the chance that access is granted outside the conditions the programme expected.

Key questions

Q: How should security teams govern access in hybrid work environments?

A: They should move from static office-bound rules to risk-aware access decisions that consider device posture, session context, resource sensitivity, and identity assurance. Hybrid work increases the number of legitimate access paths, so the control objective is not just to authenticate users, but to keep permissions aligned with where and how work is actually happening.

Q: Why does shadow IT create identity governance risk?

A: Shadow IT creates identity governance risk because access happens outside approved inventory, review, and revocation processes. When users adopt unmanaged apps or alternate workflows, security teams lose visibility into who can access what, which makes entitlement review, offboarding, and policy enforcement incomplete.

Q: What breaks when automation is allowed to influence security decisions without guardrails?

A: Governance breaks when automated workflows can change access, configuration, or remediation without clear policy limits. Automation amplifies both speed and error, so teams need defined approval boundaries, exception handling, and logging before letting machine-driven processes affect identity or access outcomes.

Q: How do Zero Trust and least privilege work together in cloud and remote access?

A: Zero Trust supplies the verification model, while least privilege limits what an authenticated identity can do once access is granted. Together they reduce the blast radius of remote sessions, unmanaged endpoints, and cloud access paths that would otherwise remain too broad for a hybrid environment.

Technical breakdown

Least privilege and remote access in hybrid environments

Least privilege means granting only the access required for the task, but hybrid work weakens that model when users move between office, home, and public networks. The article’s access discussion highlights location-aware restrictions, Zero Trust checks, and reduced trust in inherited session context. In practice, this is less about blocking productivity and more about making access decisions follow the actual risk profile of the session, device, and resource.

Practical implication: move from static user entitlements to access decisions that reflect device, network, and session risk.

Endpoint security, BYOD, and cloud data exposure

When employees use personal or unmanaged devices, the endpoint becomes the first control boundary, not the last. The article links BYOD, remote work, and cloud access to data breach risk because organisations lose visibility into the device posture that sits in front of SaaS and cloud resources. Encryption, remote wipe, and device controls matter because they reduce the chance that a stolen or compromised endpoint becomes a direct path into business data.

Practical implication: treat device posture and data protection as part of identity control, not as a separate security project.

Automation, hyper-automation, and governance drift

Hyper-automation can reduce manual effort, but it also expands the number of machine-driven decisions touching security workflows. The article’s automation trend matters because automated systems can accelerate both threat response and misconfiguration if governance is weak. That makes approval paths, policy oversight, and exception handling central to the design, especially when automation begins to influence access, monitoring, or remediation at scale.

Practical implication: define guardrails for automated security workflows before automation starts making identity-related decisions at scale.

Threat narrative

Attacker objective: The attacker seeks access to business data and connected services through the weakest identity and endpoint control points in a hybrid environment.

1. Entry begins when remote users, unmanaged devices, or public WiFi create a less controlled access path into corporate applications and cloud data.
2. Escalation occurs when shadow IT, weak access scoping, or exposed credentials let an attacker or insider move from a single account into broader business systems.
3. Impact follows when cloud data, endpoint content, or connected SaaS applications are exposed without strong device, privilege, or visibility controls.

Breaches seen in the wild

• Azure Key Vault privilege escalation exposure — Azure Key Vault Contributor role misconfiguration enabled privilege escalation.
• Cisco DevHub NHI breach — IntelBroker exploited exposed Cisco credentials, API tokens and keys in DevHub.

Read our 52 NHI Breaches Analysis report for a comprehensive view of breaches impacting Non-Human Identities including AI Agents.

NHI Mgmt Group analysis

Hybrid work is now an identity governance problem disguised as an IT operations trend. Once users, endpoints, SaaS apps, and cloud access all move outside a single managed perimeter, access policy becomes the control plane that holds the environment together. The article is really describing a shift from office-centric administration to distributed identity governance, where visibility and enforcement have to follow the worker, not the building. Practitioners should treat this as an IAM operating-model change, not a workplace design discussion.

Least privilege breaks down fastest when access is still designed around stable office context. Location, department, and time of day are no longer sufficient proxies for trust in a hybrid model, especially when remote work mixes managed and unmanaged devices. The governance failure is not just over-permissioning, but the assumption that access context stays predictable long enough for policy to remain static. Practitioners should rethink entitlement design around session conditions and resource sensitivity, not job title alone.

Shadow IT is a visibility failure, but it is also a delegation failure. When users bypass sanctioned workflows to get work done, the identity programme loses the ability to certify, review, and revoke access at the point where it matters. The article points to the broader reality that business speed often outruns access governance, especially when the approved path is too slow. Practitioners should view unsanctioned app use as a signal that identity controls are not matching operating tempo.

Automation will widen the governance gap unless policy is built into the workflow itself. The article’s hyper-automation trend matters because machine-driven operations can scale mistakes just as quickly as they scale efficiency. That aligns with NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 thinking around governed, repeatable controls, and it should push teams to treat automated access and remediation as privileged operations. Practitioners should separate automation that assists security from automation that is allowed to decide security outcomes.

Identity surface area is now a cross-domain issue, not a human-only one. Hybrid work, cloud access, low-code platforms, and automation all expand the number of identities, tokens, and workflows that need lifecycle control. The right mental model is not separate governance for each trend, but a single programme that can see human users, machine identities, and workflow-driven access as part of one access fabric. Practitioners should plan for broader identity inventory and tighter control boundaries across all three.

From our research:

• Only 13% of organisations feel extremely prepared for the reality of agentic AI despite the majority racing toward autonomous adoption, according to The 2026 Infrastructure Identity Survey.
• A separate finding shows that 70% of organisations grant AI systems more access than they would give a human employee performing the exact same job, which confirms that privilege decisions are already drifting beyond human comparators.
• For a broader governance baseline, see the Ultimate Guide to NHIs for how identity lifecycle, access scope, and visibility controls fit together across machine and human programmes.

What this signals

Identity teams should treat hybrid work as the opening phase of a larger control-plane shift. The same patterns that loosened office-based governance are now appearing in SaaS sprawl, automation, and machine-driven access. Programmes that still separate user access, device control, and application governance will struggle to keep review, revocation, and assurance aligned.

Shadow IT is likely to keep growing wherever approved workflows remain slower than the business. That is not only a tooling problem, it is an access-design problem. Teams should watch for repeated exceptions, duplicate apps, and unmanaged integrations as signs that identity governance is no longer matching operational demand.

With 67% of organisations still relying heavily on static credentials despite the risks they pose to agentic AI deployments, the next governance gap will be consistency across identity types. The same programme that manages human access, cloud access, and machine access will need shared inventory, policy, and lifecycle discipline, or each domain will drift on its own.

For practitioners

• Rebuild access policy around session risk Replace broad location-based assumptions with decisions that factor in device posture, resource sensitivity, and authentication context before granting cloud or SaaS access.
• Bring BYOD into the identity control model Require encryption, remote wipe capability, and minimum device standards before remote endpoints can reach corporate data or managed applications.
• Inventory shadow IT as an access governance signal Use unmanaged apps and duplicate workflows to identify where sanctioned access paths are too slow, too narrow, or too hard to use.
• Set approval guardrails for automated remediation Define which identity, access, and security actions automation may execute independently and which must remain behind policy checks or human approval.
• Unify lifecycle control across users, apps, and automations Extend joiner, mover, and leaver processes to cover SaaS accounts, workflow accounts, and machine-driven access paths so revocation happens across the full identity surface.

Key takeaways

• The article’s core message is that hybrid work has turned access governance into a distributed identity problem across users, devices, apps, and cloud services.
• Shadow IT, public-network access, BYOD, and automation all widen the attack surface when visibility and policy do not keep up.
• Practitioners should respond by tightening session-based access decisions, endpoint controls, and lifecycle governance across the full identity surface.

Key terms

• Least Privilege: Least privilege is the practice of giving an identity only the access required to complete a specific task. In hybrid and automated environments, that access must be bounded by session context, device posture, and resource sensitivity, not just by role or department.
• Shadow IT: Shadow IT is the use of applications, workflows, or services outside approved governance processes. It creates identity risk because the organisation cannot reliably inventory, review, or revoke the access paths those tools create, especially when users adopt them to work around friction.
• Zero Trust: Zero Trust is an access model that requires continuous verification instead of assuming trust based on network location or prior authentication. For hybrid identity programmes, it means every request must be evaluated in context, including user, device, and resource risk.
• Hyper-Automation: Hyper-automation is the use of multiple automation technologies to execute repetitive work at scale. In identity and security operations, it can improve speed and consistency, but it also increases the need for governance so automated actions do not expand access or create unmanaged risk.

Deepen your knowledge

NHI governance, agentic AI identity, and machine identity lifecycle are core topics in our NHI Foundation Level course, the industry's only accredited NHI security programme. If you are responsible for identity security strategy or NHI governance in your organisation, it is worth exploring.

This post draws on content published by Zluri: IT Teams Top Technology Trends That CIOs Cannot Overlook in 2026. Read the original.