What is non-human identity?
In short:A non-human identity is any identity used by software rather than a person: service accounts, API keys, OAuth apps, tokens and workload certificates. AI agents are a newer, more autonomous kind. Many agent identity products grew out of tools built to inventory these older machine identities.
How does it work?
Discovery tools scan clouds, SaaS and code for keys and service principals. Each is mapped to an owner and its usage is tracked.
What does it look like in practice?
A forgotten API key in a CI pipeline is a non-human identity, and so is the agent that now uses it.