Glossary
The AI Identity & NHI glossary.
Plain-English definitions for the language of AI identity security. Non-human identities (NHIs) are the AI agents, service principals and workloads that now run inside every Microsoft 365 tenant, and a shared vocabulary is the first step to governing them.
Core NHI terms
The vocabulary of non-human identity security, and how AIRM delivers each.
- Non-Human Identity NHI
- A digital identity that belongs to software rather than a person: an AI agent, Copilot, service principal, app registration, service account or workload, each with its own credentials and access to data. What is AI identity security? →
- Non-Human Identity Security
- The practice of securing the identities software and AI use, by discovering them, scoring their risk, and controlling what they can access.
- Non-Human Identity Management NHI Management
- Managing non-human identities across their lifecycle: ownership, permissions, rotation and decommissioning.
- NHI Discovery
- Finding every non-human identity in an environment, including the third-party and non-conforming agents that naming-based tools miss. See discovery in the platform →
- NHI Visibility
- A continuous, complete view of the non-human identities in a tenant and what each one can reach.
- NHI Risk
- The exposure a non-human identity creates, based on its permissions, blast radius, ownership and activity.
- NHI Risk Management
- Identifying, scoring and reducing the risk non-human identities pose, continuously rather than point-in-time. See the NHI Risk Score →
- NHI Governance
- Applying policy, approval and oversight to every non-human identity so its access stays appropriate and auditable.
- NHI Inventory
- A complete, current list of every non-human identity in a tenant, the foundation for governing them.
- NHI Observability
- Continuous monitoring of non-human identity behaviour to detect drift, anomalies and newly created identities.
- NHI Compliance
- Demonstrating that non-human identities are governed to the standards frameworks require, such as the EU AI Act, DORA and ISO 42001. See frameworks →
- NHI Posture
- The overall health of an organisation's non-human identity estate, expressed as a score that can be tracked and improved.
- NHI Lifecycle
- The full life of a non-human identity, from creation and permission grant through review, rotation and decommissioning.
See your non-human identities, free.
Run a free NHI Risk Score on any Microsoft 365 tenant and see every AI agent and non-human identity, scored, in minutes.
Get your NHI Risk Score →