07/13/2026
When AI becomes Identity.
That was the room Alim Ul Karim, Chief Software Architect at Riseup Asia, sat in on 30 June 2026 — an executive session hosted by HashiCorp | An IBM Company at Novotel, on "Managing Identity in the Age of Autonomous Systems."
Featured voices:
→ Shaibal Saha — APAC Digital Trust Leader, IBM
→ Jerome Walter — Field CTO, HashiCorp
The conversation was Agentic AI, straight up — and specifically the problem nobody wants to talk about yet:
When AI agents start acting on your behalf, WHO are they, and WHAT are they allowed to do?
A few things we're taking back to the Riseup Asia team:
1. Non-human identity is the next perimeter. Every agent, every workflow, every autonomous step needs its own identity, its own secrets, and its own blast radius. "Just give it the admin token" is how enterprises get breached in the Agentic AI era.
2. Secrets, policy, and short-lived credentials are the boring superpowers. Vault-style secrets management and policy-as-code (HashiCorp's home turf) plus enterprise trust patterns (IBM's home turf) are becoming the plumbing under every serious Agentic AI rollout.
3. Governance is a design choice, not a compliance afterthought. The teams that will win with Agentic AI are the ones designing identity, audit, and human-in-the-loop from day one — not bolting it on after the pilot goes live.
Our Riseup Asia position stands:
Cloud is the engine. People are the drivers.
Agents are powerful — but only as trustworthy as the identity, secrets, and policy behind them.
The teams pairing sharp engineering with real governance are the ones turning Agentic AI into revenue, not risk.
Big thanks to HashiCorp | An IBM Company, Shaibal Saha, Jerome Walter, and everyone at the table for a session that actually went deep.
If you're building with Agentic AI and figuring out identity, secrets, and access — talk to Riseup Asia.