Liminal Insights Report

Link Index for Workforce Identity and Access Management 2026

Identity is the new enterprise perimeter. See which vendors are leading the shift toward continuous verification, automation, and unified access governance.

01/13/26

Report Overview

Workforce identity sits at the center of enterprise security, connecting every login, device, and application across the business. However, many organizations continue to manage access through fragmented tools and outdated processes that struggle to keep pace with hybrid work and automation.

As workforces become more complex, identity programs must do more than simply authenticate users. They need to secure employees, contractors, and even machine accounts under one connected framework, without slowing people down. Most identity leaders are already exploring AI and automation to make that happen, yet integration and usability challenges still stand in the way of scale.

The next generation of Workforce IAM focuses on continuous verification and smarter automation, where access decisions adapt in real time based on context and behavior. Done well, it keeps systems secure while giving users a simple, consistent experience.

The 2025 Link Index for Workforce Identity and Access Management benchmarks the 15 providers setting the pace for modern IAM. Liminal reviewed 118 platforms and found those that unite strong security, scalability, and usability, with continuous verification, automated governance, and built-in threat detection at their core.

Key Takeways:

AI and automation drive the next wave of IAM: 97% of practitioners are exploring or using AI and machine learning to automate access decisions and strengthen risk detection, signaling a major shift toward intelligent identity management.
Passwordless adoption remains uneven: 94% of organizations have deployed passwordless solutions, but only 44% of employees use them as their primary login method, showing that user habits still slow progress.
Integration is the biggest barrier to change: Nearly half of identity leaders (48%) cite integration with legacy systems as their top challenge, limiting the adoption of decentralized and adaptive IAM models.
Credentials remain a core security risk: 94% of teams still focus on mitigating credential-based threats like password theft and MFA bypass, proving that reliance on static credentials continues to expose enterprises to risk.
Continuous verification is becoming the standard: 96% of organizations plan to move from static checks to continuous, behavioral-based verification within two years, embedding real-time risk monitoring directly into IAM platforms.

Methodology
The Link Index offers a detailed analysis and ranking of leading vendors for specific use cases, leveraging robust data and insights from Liminal’s market and competitive intelligence platform, Link. Liminal’s research team invites solution providers to participate in a company survey and analyst briefing. It uses a proprietary framework to assess and rank product capabilities based on their relevance to market needs. Liminal’s Digital Identity Landscape taxonomy and ontology are central to the Link Index, which precisely evaluates vendor solutions by buyer demand, product capability, and market presence. Liminal conducts a rigorous survey among buyers in the vendor selection process to identify the most in-demand product capabilities and the most valued product components. Market presence criteria included buyer satisfaction, market penetration, and brand recognition. The Link Index was designed to be used to inform go-to-market strategy and execution and provide guidance for solution buyers, specifically:
- Executives in corporate strategy
- Leaders of go-to-market execution
- Practitioners of solution implementation