Delinea Iris AI enhances identity security with real-time auditing

Delinea has launched Delinea Iris AI, an artificial intelligence-powered engine built into its platform to assist organisations in detecting and responding to security threats by leveraging real-time behavioural context and automated auditing.

The introduction of Delinea Iris AI comes at a time when traditional identity security frameworks are struggling to keep up with the acceleration of AI and increasingly complex hybrid work environments. According to recent research referenced by Delinea, 97% of organisations have experienced an AI-related security incident and have reported a lack of effective AI controls.

AI-driven authorisation and auditing

Delinea Iris AI is embedded natively within the Delinea Platform and is designed to enhance authorisation and auditing capabilities. The authorisation feature uses AI to assess access requests by evaluating user behaviour, business justifications, device, location, and policy alignment in real time. This enables risk triage for every access request without disrupting normal productivity. The platform is also able to adjust access dynamically as user contexts evolve, providing clear reasoning and a comprehensive audit trail for each access decision.

The AI-powered auditing capability analyses recorded user sessions, detecting incidents such as elevated privileges, failed authorisations, deletions, file transfers, and unusual use of sensitive data (referred to as 'Secrets'). The system highlights potentially risky actions within seconds and delivers evidence-based reports and heatmaps of suspicious activity, aimed at helping security teams identify, investigate, and respond to threats efficiently.

Industry perspectives

"In today's fast-paced, hybrid cloud environments, teams are constantly spinning up new apps, tools and services, often without security oversight," said Jackie McGuire, Security Practise Lead and Principal Analyst at theCUBE Research. "With Delinea Iris AI, there's real value in transforming shadow IT into a security onboarding pipeline, giving teams visibility and control across every identity, no matter where it lives or how it's managed. It redefines the role of the security team from being seen as 'The Department of No' to becoming a true enabler that proactively helps teams avoid mistakes before they happen."

Delinea stated that the new capabilities driven by Iris AI are now generally available or in public preview for customers, reflecting an ongoing need among enterprises for more responsive and adaptive security controls.

Identity security challenges

The company stressed that contemporary hybrid environments are exposing organisations to new and evolving threats that traditional, manually operated security tools are not equipped to handle at scale. Delinea's solution is designed to place IT and security teams at the centre of a real-time, context-aware identity security framework. This framework aims to provide authorisation based on current risk, identify anomalies, enable evidence-based risk remediation and offer audit trails to support compliance efforts.

"The recent rapid expansion of the identity attack surface is unlike anything we've ever seen, making security near impossible as it continues to evolve significantly," said Phil Calvin, Chief Product Officer at Delinea. "Delinea Iris AI was purpose-built to change that. We're raising the standard for identity security with an AI engine that IT and security teams have been asking for – one that's practical, intuitive, and trustworthy. This launch reinforces Delinea's mission to provide a smarter, faster, more efficient way to adapt to changing identity risks while preparing for what's next."

Response to industry developments

Delinea's announcement also arrives in the wake of notable industry developments, such as the acquisition of CyberArk by Palo Alto Networks, which Delinea notes as evidence of increased urgency around strengthening identity and access management strategies for enterprises.

By embedding artificial intelligence directly into its platform, Delinea aims to help organisations address the challenges associated with the rapid expansion of digital identities across both cloud-based and traditional infrastructure.