Identity Security Spending to Climb 55% by 2031
Juniper projects IAM spending reaching $40.5 billion, as AI agents drive identity to the center of security budgets.
Updated on Nov. 3, 2026 in Cybersecurity
Juniper Research projects identity and access management (IAM) spending will rise 55% by 2031, climbing from $26.2 billion this year to $40.5 billion globally. Sophos research found seven-in-ten companies saw at least one identity-related breach in 2025. These are projections and survey findings, not shipped results.
Why it matters
Identity has become the main attack surface as non-human identities such as AI agents quickly outnumber human employees, and AI is exacerbating the risks IAM systems must address. Spending growth signals that organizations are moving from one-time logins toward continuous, adaptive monitoring of who and what holds access.
Juniper Research's forecast rests on a projected rise in deployments, from 67.6 million businesses this year to 88 million in 2031, alongside spending growth from $26.2 billion to $40.5 billion. Sophos's finding that seven-in-ten companies saw an identity-related breach in 2025 is a survey-style measure, and the stub does not provide its sample or the year-over-year change.
The players
Juniper Research
A UK-based market research firm that publishes forecasts on technology spending, including this IAM spending projection.
Sophos
A cybersecurity company whose research identified identity-related breaches and the role AI plays in sharpening them.
The details
Identity and access management (IAM) systems decide which users, devices, and software agents can reach which resources, and they are being redesigned around continuous checks rather than a single login. Instead of trusting an account once at sign-in, adaptive monitoring watches behavior over time and flags anomalies. IAM systems are being built to catch excessive privileges — access rights broader than a task needs — along with dormant accounts that are no longer used but remain active, and policy drift, where access rules gradually diverge from what was intended.
Timeline
2025: Sophos-reported identity-related breaches affected seven-in-ten companies.
This year (2026): IAM spending reaches $26.2 billion, with 67.6 million businesses deploying IAM.
2031: IAM spending is projected at $40.5 billion, with 88 million businesses deploying IAM.
The Tech Race
Juniper Research's forecast places IAM at the center of enterprise security budgets, with spending on identity controls growing faster than many adjacent security categories. Sophos's breach findings suggest the competitive pressure is coming from attackers exploiting identities directly, rather than from malware alone.
Smaller businesses are likely to adopt dedicated IAM tools as adoption rises, while larger businesses have already set guardrails around AI agents. The stub does not give pricing or timelines for specific products, so availability for any given organization remains unclear.
The takeaway
Watch for whether the 88 million deployment figure for 2031 materializes as businesses move toward continuous identity monitoring. Track whether Sophos's seven-in-ten breach rate changes in its next annual report, which would show whether identity controls are reducing the problem.
Further reading
For the wider picture on how attackers exploit credentials and access, explore our Cybersecurity coverage.
