SAML
SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) is the protocol that passes authentication and authorization data between an identity platform and the applications it secures. It is the backbone of enterprise SSO — the mechanism that answers 'who is this user, and what can they access?' at every login, across every application.
# WHAT TEAMS RUN INTO
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Session management gets harder to audit at scale. Visibility gaps form between who should have access and who actually does.
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Deprovisioning lags behind offboarding. Access often persists across federated apps long after someone leaves.
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SAML assertions were not designed for agentic identities. Authentication flows built for humans don't map cleanly to AI agents.
# WHY IT MATTERS
Every access decision is an identity decision. Every identity decision is a security decision. SAML is not just a protocol — it is one of the core control points where access is granted, trusted, and often not fully verified. When a single party holds the signing key, a compromised identity platform can issue valid tokens for anyone. That is an architectural problem, not a configuration one.