AskIAM: IBM Bets on AI to Clean Up the Identity Mess

Here’s a hard truth: an organization’s identity and access management (IAM) system, the one bolted together over years of mergers, migrations, and middleware, instead of protecting its valuable assets, might be its biggest liability. But IBM, with the introduction of  AskIAM, is betting that artificial intelligence–real, enterprise-grade, generative AI–can flip the script  (IBM, 2025).

For years, identity was the silent scaffolding of enterprise IT, critical to operations but rarely scrutinized unless something broke. IAM platforms were built to manage access, not detect threats. They evolved reactively, patching together custom scripts, brittle workflows, and outdated provisioning logic as companies expanded across clouds, business units, and regulatory frameworks. But that quietness came at a cost. What began as a backend utility has become a sprawling attack surface.

As businesses layered on SaaS platforms, hybrid environments, and contractor networks, IAM complexity surged and so did the cracks. Fragmented role definitions. Overprivileged accounts. Orphaned credentials. Manual approvals and disconnected audit trails compound all. Attackers took notice. Not through brute force or exotic zero-days but by leveraging credentials, often valid ones, to orchestrate a variety of malicious actions, including phishing attacks, token theft and session hijacking. Those malicious attempts are low risk and high yield.

And they are almost invisible because most IAM systems weren’t designed to handle adversarial behavior. Firewalls block traffic. SIEMs flag anomalies. But traditional IAM tools assume good faith. They grant access based on entitlements, not context. They audit after the fact, if they audit at all.

But with the unveiling of AskIAM, a new AI capability, IBM Consulting promises to replace current, vulnerable IAM with something smarter, faster, and infinitely more human. Part assistant, part advisor, AskIAM  lets users request access in Slack or Teams as they would chat with IT then AI handles the grunt work like approvals, provisioning, and even  compliance checks. 

Not just another copy-paste chatbot, AskIAM is a contextual intelligence layer built to understand the IAM environment, flag security gaps, and nudge governance from reactive to real-time. It also integrates directly with existing systems, including IBM Verify, Microsoft Entra, SailPoint, Saviynt, and CyberArk.

AskIAM audits IAM configurations, flags dangerous permissions, and helps enterprises finally ditch ageing systems like SAP IdM or CA IAM without rewriting their identity logic from scratch. It’s part of IBM Consulting’s larger strategy: security that’s proactive, contextual, and built for the age of agentic AI. The architecture is open by design, which means enterprises can feed in their own large language models or compliance rules.  And unlike one-off AI tools, AskIAM doesn’t arrive in a vacuum. It comes with IBM’s consulting muscle–experts who help design, integrate, and evolve it alongside business.

If credentials are the new perimeter, then identity is the battlefield. Armed with modern, genAI-infused IAM solutions like AskIAM enterprises might be able to mount a stronger defense.