How Agentic AI is Creating a Crisis of Identity

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself if the person you’re talking to on the phone is an AI system or an actual, honest-to-goodness human? It’s expected that in 2026, you’ll be asking this question a lot more often—especially with the rise of agentic AI. This development takes the vulnerability that already exists in your human infrastructure and attempts to make it impossible to stop. Today, we’ll explore agentic AI, what it looks like, and what you can do to put a stop to it in the years to come.

What is Agentic AI, and What Does It Look Like?

Agentic AI is the use of autonomous systems capable of performing multi-step actions without human intervention.

It’s expected that in the near future, cybercriminals will exploit agentic AI and weaponize them against business owners. This will be done through the creation of hyper-realistic, real-time deception at massive scale. These kinds of attacks will bring about a crisis of identity for not only your business, but the world at large. How can you be sure that who you’re speaking with is actually who they claim to be?

Here are some of the strategies that agentic AI will employ against your business:

• AI-enabled deepfake social engineering - These types of attacks are leveraging real-time, flawless voice cloning (also known as vishing) and realistic text emulation to create perfect imitations of CEOs or IT staff. These deepfakes can bypass MFA, request wire transfers, and trick employees into running a malicious application.
• Machine identities - You might be surprised by how many non-human identities exist on your infrastructure, from automated scripts, cloud functionality, and even application programming interfaces. A human-forged identity can create a chain reaction to allow for a rapid cybersecurity breach. This forged identity is trusted by your automated systems, which means it’s not caught by your typical cybersecurity defenses.
• Prompt injection - Businesses utilizing LLMs are opening the doors for prompt injection attacks, which is where an attacker manipulates the AI model to bypass its security protocols and execute malicious code. An LLM can be tricked into handing over sensitive data or running an action without permission, both of which can become problematic.

So what do you do about these kinds of threats?

How to Prepare For and Combat Agentic AI

If your business hopes to keep itself safe in the near future, you’ll want to reconsider the reactive approach and implement an identity-first security model. You’ll want full control over the following:

• SMS and one-time passcode authentication should be replaced with more powerful methods -  Use a trusted 2FA app and enforce 2FA across your network and the software you use.
• Establishing zero-trust policies for your AI agents - You’ll want to ensure proper identity and access management controls are in place so you can track and audit all activity done by autonomous processes..
• Build a crisis of authenticity response plan - You should have a plan in place for your teams to authenticate urgent and important requests (like large financial transfers or major decisions), especially for solutions that leverage voice or video. You should never trust the communication channel inherently.

You should be worried about the cybersecurity landscape moving forward, but you shouldn’t be paralyzed by fear. Instead, you can work with JensenIT to ensure your organization is prepared and well-equipped for whatever evil schemes the bad guys cook up. Learn more about the services we offer by calling us today at (847) 803-0044.