ServiceNow announced earlier this week that it was acquiring Veza, a fast-growing cybersecurity software startup that makes what is known as an “identity and access management” platform for both humans and AI agents.
Senior Editor, who holds the positions of president, chief product officer, and chief operating officer at ServiceNow, informed Coins2Day that this purchase will enable ServiceNow to deliver a capability that its clients had been requesting more and more.
He stated that chief information security officers—whom the firm already assisted via offerings designed to help them manage network notifications and handle security breaches—had requested a method for overseeing and monitoring the information accessed by individuals and artificial intelligence entities. “We’ve been thinking about how we really help our customers solve those complicated problems [around managing AI agents] and strengthen their ability to deliver on AI plans while having security and governance built in,” he commented.
Zavery said Veza will provide a boost to ServiceNow’s fast-growing cybersecurity offerings, which are currently generating more than $1 billion in annual sales for the SaaS giant..
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Veza, which is based in Los Gatos, Calif., was last valued at $808 million in a funding round in April and news reports suggested that ServiceNow paid more than $1 billion to buy the company.
Identity and access management refers to a framework for monitoring individuals' access to digital environments and the data they are authorized to view. These types of systems have consistently been a crucial element of cybersecurity. They serve to restrict the types of information that an intruder who has compromised someone's login details—or a disloyal staff member—might reach and possibly steal or corrupt.
However, these frameworks have gained increased significance as a growing number of businesses permit AI entities to execute tasks, ranging from basic data retrieval to completing financial exchanges. Platforms for managing identity and access empower information security and review departments to monitor the activities of AI entities and establish guidelines that reduce the potential dangers these AI entities might present.
Prior to agreeing to buy Veza, ServiceNow had an integration with its product, but did not offer an access management solution of its own. “We were working with multiple providers, but we found Veza as probably the most advanced, especially in the AI native world,” Zavery said.
Veza, established in 2020, asserts that it aids in safeguarding numerous corporate clients, such as Blackstone, Wynn Resorts, and Expedia.
Zavery stated that ServiceNow found Veza's patented “Access Graph” technology particularly impressive, which is a system designed to chart the connections and authorization levels among people, AI agents, devices, and data repositories instantaneously.
“I think the combination of here’s what a human can do, what machines can do, as well as what AI agents can do, and bringing it into one platform so that you don’t have fragmentation of access privileges” is critical to allowing companies to deploy AI agents without taking on too much security risk, Zavery said.
He stated that AI agents present a distinct hurdle for managing access due to the possibility that the same agent may require varying network permissions contingent upon the employee it represents and the specific duty it's assigned. For example, an AI agent inquiring a human resources database could be granted entry to confidential compensation figures when operating for a high-level executive, yet only restricted entry to, for instance, fundamental employee welfare information, when acting for a less senior staff member. Furthermore, in either scenario, you might wish to grant the agent authorization solely for reading from the database, whereas if it were functioning for an individual within the HR division, it might necessitate authorization to modify the database as well.
Zavery stated that Veza's system enables organizations to establish these intricate access policies. He mentioned that Veza's functionalities would be incorporated into ServiceNow's AI Control Tower offering, a system designed for overseeing and managing AI agents, which was introduced earlier in the year. The organization has indicated that this has been one of its most rapidly expanding services.
TL;DR
- ServiceNow acquired Veza, a cybersecurity startup specializing in identity and access management for humans and AI agents.
- This acquisition aims to help clients manage AI agent access and strengthen their AI plan security and governance.
- Veza's "Access Graph" technology maps connections and authorization levels for people, AI agents, devices, and data.
- The acquired capabilities will be integrated into ServiceNow's AI Control Tower offering for managing AI agents.
Veza cofounder and CEO Tarun Thakur said in a press release indicated that becoming part of ServiceNow would assist “customers embrace AI with greater confidence” through offering “clear, integrated control over every type of identity—whether it belongs to a person, a machine, or an AI agent.”
Zavery declined to provide specifics on how ServiceNow plans to price the identity and access management capabilities it is acquiring with Veza, but said the company would “try to make sure that the capabilities, the core capabilities, are available to our platform” as part of a standard subscription, while potentially charging separately for unique features.
ServiceNow has been integrating AI functionalities via several acquisitions. This marks the company's sixth such move this year. Although primarily recognized for supplying businesses with IT service solutions, it has progressively expanded into sales and customer relationship management, alongside HR and operations oversight, directly competing with competitors like Salesforce, SAP, and Microsoft, as well as entities such as Atlassian and IBM.
