Enterprise cloud identity shift (2009-2015)
When companies adopted Salesforce, Google Apps, and other SaaS tools, IT departments lost the ability to see who accessed what. Okta was founded in 2009 to build a single directory across these applications, where before each app had its own login and user list.
SAML and later OpenID Connect became the standards for cloud identity, and Okta became the dominant independent identity provider.
Identity moved from a per-application problem to a centralized control plane. That is the same model Okta now applies to AI agents.
AI agents are today's SaaS apps: proliferating fast, tied to scattered credentials, and invisible until something goes wrong.
