AI Agent Access Tops Security Leaders' 2026 Access Control Priorities, Research Finds NAC Foundational to Visibility and Enforcement

Research sponsored by Portnox finds AI agent access leading buyers' 2026 access control priorities and recommends measuring how fast detected risk becomes enforced control

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Portnox today shared findings from "AI Drives New Access Control Requirements," an IDC InfoBrief sponsored by the company. The research finds enterprise buyers ranking AI agent access as their top 2026 access control priority and identifies network access control (NAC) as the second most important technology for the visibility and context security teams need. It also warns that spotting risky AI access is not enough if enforcement takes minutes while exploits take seconds.

Portnox commissioned the research as AI agents take on real work inside the enterprise: authenticating to applications, reaching sensitive data, and acting around the clock, often with no human watching. Most access control programs were built for people and managed devices. IDC study's data shows the cost of that gap. Security and compliance restrictions are now the No. 2 reason organizations limit AI deployment. The InfoBrief from IDC, a global leader in research and data, examines where AI ranks among buyers' access control priorities and what it takes to turn detected risk into enforced control fast enough to matter.

Key findings

• 18%, 16%, 15%: Agent-to-agent, agent-to-resource, and agent-to-device access led respondents' 2026 access control priorities. User access to resources and device access to resources each drew 15% (IDC Zero-Trust Segmentation Buyer Adoption Survey, n=400).
• 14% and 13%: "AI usage and access" and "AI infrastructure" ranked first and second among zero-trust priorities, ahead of users/identities and data (11% each).
• 41.6%: of respondents said meeting security and compliance requirements was an important factor in deploying AI extensively. Security and compliance restrictions were also the No. 2 reason for limited deployment (IDC 2026 FERS Survey, Wave 2, n=1,009).
• No. 2: Network access control (NAC) ranked as the second most important technology for providing comprehensive visibility and contextual information (IDC Zero-Trust Segmentation Buyer Adoption Survey, March 2026, n=400).
• 95%: of respondents said their NAC is effective to very effective in increasing the granularity of segmentation policies.

Detection is no longer the finish line

"AI agents now have access to sensitive business systems, and companies need clear limits on what they can do," said Garrett Gross, Field CISO at Portnox. "Organizations need to know how quickly they can cut off risky access. If that still depends on someone reviewing an alert and opening a ticket, an AI agent can keep working while the security team catches up. Every minute spent waiting is another minute that an agent can reach data or systems where it can do damage."

The InfoBrief recommends changing how businesses measure security performance: "New KPIs should track how quickly a detected risk becomes an enforced control, not just how many risks surface."

Visibility is where enforcement starts

"You can't enforce access you can't see," said Gross. "IDC study's data puts NAC second for the visibility and context security teams need, and that visibility is what lets you restrict risky access the moment it's flagged."

Consistent access rules and policy enforcement across cloud environments

Buyers are managing access across sprawling environments: approximately 60% of respondents manage six or more cloud environments, and approximately 38% manage 10 or more. That raises a practical question for enterprises: whether the same access rules can be enforced wherever an AI agent operates.

Read the IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Portnox, at www.portnox.com/ai-access-control-infobrief.

Research methodology

The InfoBrief draws on existing and custom IDC research and analysis, including IDC's Zero-Trust Segmentation Buyer Adoption Survey, March 2026 (n=400), and its 2026 Future Enterprise Resiliency and Spending (FERS) Survey. The 41.6% finding comes from the 2026 FERS Survey, wave two (n=1,009). Findings come from separate surveys and respondent groups.

Source: IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Portnox, AI Drives New Access Control Requirements, doc #US54922626-IB, October 2026

About Portnox

Portnox is a cloud-native enterprise access control provider that helps organizations secure every identity – human and non-human – across networks, applications, and infrastructure. As identities, devices, and workloads multiply across modern environments, Portnox enables continuous access verification based on identity context, device posture, and risk signals.

Its unified platform brings together passwordless authentication, access control, continuous policy enforcement, and automated response through a single policy engine. Portnox gives security and IT teams real-time visibility into everything connecting and the ability to quickly restrict, quarantine, or revoke non-compliant access.

Today, Portnox actively manages more than one million devices worldwide, secures 40 million authentication sessions, and blocks over one million unauthorized access attempts every day. Learn more at www.portnox.com and follow Portnox on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Portnox