As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in enterprise systems, cybersecurity companies BluDive and Delinea are urging organisations to strengthen Privileged Access Management (PAM) as businesses face a changing and more complex risk environment.
PAM refers to the policies and technologies organisations use to control, monitor and secure accounts with elevated access to critical systems and sensitive data. These accounts can include system administrators, database managers, cloud engineers and other users with permissions that ordinary employees do not have.
The growing adoption of AI is making privileged access more important because organisations are giving automated systems and AI-powered tools access to internal applications, databases and workflows. While these technologies can improve productivity, excessive or poorly controlled permissions can create new pathways for attackers.
According to the cybersecurity perspective shared by BluDive and Delinea, organisations need to reconsider traditional approaches to access management as AI changes how employees, applications and automated agents interact with enterprise infrastructure.
The risk is particularly significant when AI systems are connected to multiple business applications. An AI agent designed to automate a task may require access to customer records, financial systems, cloud platforms or internal documents. If those permissions are broader than necessary, a compromised account or system could potentially expose sensitive resources.
This makes the principle of least privilege increasingly important. Instead of giving users or automated systems permanent access to everything they might need, organisations can provide only the permissions required for a specific task and limit those permissions when they are no longer necessary.
Privileged credentials also remain an attractive target for cybercriminals. Attackers who obtain administrator credentials can potentially move across an organisation’s network, access sensitive information, alter configurations or disrupt critical operations. As enterprises become more dependent on cloud infrastructure and interconnected digital services, the consequences of compromised privileged access can become more severe.
Organisations therefore need stronger visibility into who has privileged access, what systems they can reach and how those permissions are being used. Continuous monitoring can help security teams identify unusual activity, while stronger authentication and credential controls can reduce the likelihood of unauthorised access.
The rise of AI also introduces a new dimension: non-human identities. Service accounts, applications, automated workflows and AI agents may all require access to corporate systems. These identities can be difficult to manage because they may operate continuously and interact with multiple resources without direct human supervision.
For businesses, the challenge is finding a balance between enabling innovation and maintaining security. Restricting AI tools too heavily could reduce their value, but allowing them unrestricted access could create unnecessary exposure.
PAM can provide a framework for managing that balance by ensuring access is limited, monitored and tied to specific business needs. Combined with strong identity verification, multi-factor authentication, credential rotation and real-time monitoring, it can help organisations reduce the potential impact of compromised privileges.
As AI adoption accelerates, cybersecurity strategies will need to evolve alongside it. The organisations most prepared for the next phase of enterprise AI may not simply be those deploying the most advanced models, but those capable of controlling what their digital systems are allowed to access.
BluDive and Delinea’s warning therefore points to a broader lesson: AI security begins with controlling identity and access. As machines gain greater responsibility inside businesses, privileged access management is becoming an increasingly important line of defence.
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