Every AI Agent Needs A Badge

Every AI agent inside a company needs a badge.

Somebody has to decide what it can access, and somebody has to notice when those credentials start getting used in ways they shouldn't be. That's an entirely new category of customer that didn't exist two years ago, and Okta (OKTA) sells directly into it.

They just paid $200 million for Permiso Security to do exactly that, detecting suspicious behavior after access has already been granted.

Look what it did to the numbers. Revenue at $805 million against a $795 million estimate, EPS at $1.05 versus $0.97, and operating margin went from 5.6% to 13.3% in a single year. Backlog is up 17%.

They raised full-year guidance for the second straight quarter and the stock jumped 20%.