IBM is announcing the general availability ofAskIAM, a generative AI capability within the IBM Consulting Advantage delivery platform, purpose-built to help clients modernize their identity and access management (IAM) systems.

By Dimple Ahluwalia | Global Offering Leader, CyberDefend, IBM Consulting

Deployed and managed by IBM cybersecurity consultants, AskIAM can be used to simplify identity management processes like provisioning and access requests while also providing advanced intelligence and automation to strengthen identity protection.

As businesses manage multiple cloud environments while accelerating AI adoption at scale, they’re faced with overly complex IT environments and identity fragmentation that attackers are actively capitalizing on. In fact, the recent IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index found attackers have shifted to accessing victim organizations by abusing valid credentials versus hacking in – showing the growing need to modernize identity and access management systems.

“The need for automated identity and access management to reduce manual effort is long overdue,” said Scott Tiazkun, research manager for worldwide security services at IDC. “IBM’s AskIAM uses AI to streamline access requests and reduce delays via integration with Microsoft Teams and Slack for notification and action. The AI assistant helps users, auditors, and executives get faster, easier access and better visibility into compliance and security. As an agent for identity, AskIAM delivers one of the most user-friendly experiences in the space.”

With the new AskIAM capability and our consultants’ deep expertise in identity management, IBM Consulting can help clients:

• Modernize identity: Streamline access requests and approvals in real-time for users and managers through a natural language interface such as Slack or Microsoft Teams.
• Unlock efficiency: Accelerate onboarding processes for applications and privileged access management (PAM) tools. AskIAM guides application users and owners while capturing necessary information to accelerate application onboarding and automate identity onboarding and secure access management for PAM tools.
• Minimize risk, maximize control: Enhance the organization’s security posture and minimize risk by analyzing existing IAM configurations and custom workflow scripts, while enabling integration of data migrated from end-of-life heritage platforms – such as SAP Identity Management (IdM), CA Technologies’ IAM, and others – to modern, scalable IAM platforms and architectures.

AskIAM, built on IBM watsonx Assistant, is the latest AI capability developed as part of IBM Consulting Advantage for Cybersecurity Services, a collection of assets designed to help clients tackle security challenges using the benefits of AI and automation. IBM consultants can co-create with clients to design and integrate AskIAM into existing Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solutions and implementations. With an open architecture design, AskIAM can leverage existing customer investments in large language models (LLMs), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and messaging middleware as needed. In addition, IBM provides ongoing services support as clients’ data, policies and technology environments evolve.

Figure 1: IBM AskIAM agentic AI architecture.

Built with an agnostic architecture, AskIAM can be deployed in on-premise, hybrid and cloud environments for clients using IBM Verify, Microsoft Entra, and Saviynt, as well as enabling integration with other IGA platforms such as CyberArk, Delinea, and Sailpoint. It is our intention with the upcoming integration on IBM Verify, AskIAM may complement new and existing generative AI features.

For more information on IBM Consulting Cybersecurity Services’ identity and access management services, including the AskIAM capability, please visit: https://www.ibm.com/services/identity-access-management.