Vanderbilt University extends identity governance to AI agents

Identity governance must accommodate changing relationships among people, institutions and technology. Vanderbilt University sees that complexity deepening as artificial intelligence agents enter institutional workflows.

Vanderbilt uses OneVU, powered by Okta, for single sign-on. Its broader environment includes residential life, athletics, its own police department and more than $1 billion in research. That breadth complicates access decisions, according to Shane Callahan (pictured), chief information officer of Vanderbilt.

“When it comes to [a] university, you could have multiple identities and sometimes at the same time,” he said. “For me, I’m a student, I’m a staff member, [I] could be a donor — all these different things — and they all have different profiles of how you work at a university. Keeping track of that security profile is very, very difficult.”

Callahan spoke with theCUBE Research’s Krista Case and co-host Rebecca Knight at Okta’s Oktane event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed changing identity requirements, AI agent accountability and cross-functional governance. (* Disclosure below.)

Identity governance confronts agent accountability