Zero Trust and Identity: Evolving from Humans to AI

Zero Trust started as a way to protect human users logging into applications. Over the past decade, it has expanded to workloads, cloud services, and machine identities. Now, with the rise of agentic AI, enterprises must confront a new challenge: how do you apply identity-driven security to autonomous systems that act, decide, and interact on their own?

In this session, Chris Owen (dotNext Europe) and Apurva Dave (Aembit) trace the evolution of Zero Trust through the lens of identity. From workforce IAM to PAM, from service accounts to non-human identities, and now to AI agents, they’ll map the journey — and the pitfalls. They’ll show how legacy approaches break down, and how organizations can evolve toward policy-driven, workload-centric, AI-ready identity models.

Attendees Will Learn

How Zero Trust has evolved—from securing humans and workforce IAM to workloads, APIs, service accounts, and now autonomous AI agents.
Real-world patterns and pitfalls organizations face when adapting Zero Trust to non-human identities.
A practical framework for “AI-ready Identity & Access” and how policies can govern machine-to-machine and agent-to-agent access.

Who Should Attend

CISOs, IT, and security leaders exploring Zero Trust or identity-first security
Engineers and architects working with cloud services, automation, or AI
Teams responsible for protecting applications, workloads, or data
Anyone interested in how AI changes identity and access security

The Panelists

Apurva Davé

Chief Marketing Officer, Aembit

Apurva runs strategy and marketing at Aembit. He pioneers the NHI and Workload IAM markets, with a focus on creating proactive approaches instead of the standard detect-and-respond security model. Apurva’s history is rich with opening new markets and growing massive ones: Riverbed (early days to IPO), Jut (founder), Sysdig (seed to unicorn), and Google Cloud Security (3x’d team and revenue). He holds a computer science degree from Brown University and an MBA from UC Berkeley.

Chris Owen

Managing Director

Chris Owen is the Managing Director of dotnext Europe, bringing nearly 20 years of expertise in Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM). In his current role, Chris is committed to driving strategic growth, delivering impactful, vendor agnostic identity advisory services, and fostering innovation within the identity space.

Throughout his career, Chris has held leadership and technical roles at Saviynt, Quest/One Identity, CyberArk, BeyondTrust, and Centrify. His extensive background in consulting, technical sales, and product management has equipped him to align product strategies with market trends and deliver unified, identity-centric solutions tailored to clients’ needs.

A passionate advocate for talent development, Chris has championed mentoring initiatives that empower professionals to excel in their careers. As a thought leader in the industry, he frequently shares his insights at major events, helping to shape the future of IAM.

At dotnext Europe, Chris continues to guide organizations through the complexities of identity management, enabling them to achieve security excellence and operational efficiency.

Ashur Kanoon

Security Technical Product Marketing and Executive Advisor | Aembit

Marketing, product, and security professional with 20+ years in zero trust access, identity, network/cloud/mobile security, and NAC/ BYOD. Skilled technical and marketing content creator experienced in building demos, producing professional videos, and translating complex concepts for any audience.

Background includes technical enablement, demo environment development, pricing/licensing strategy, and competitive intelligence. Seasoned presenter and MC for keynotes, webinars, and exec-level briefings, with a reputation for quickly ramping up, solving problems, and building strong relationships.