Q&A: ManageEngine’s Senior Technology Evangelist On Reimagining Identity Security

Jay Reddy leads the Product Led Growth (PLG) for ManageEngine’s IAM and SIEM solutions. As a senior figure in the product management (PM) team, Jay is instrumental in defining the go-to-market and growth strategies for ManageEngine’s IAM and SIEM solutions.

With over eight years of experience as a Senior Technology Evangelist, he serves as a trusted advisor to IT leaders and multinational corporations on cybersecurity. Jay often shares his expertise at international forums, including analyst and industry events, collaborating with other prominent cybersecurity experts and thought leaders.

Expert Insights reached out to the ManageEngine team to get Reddy’s insights on the challenges in the IAM space today, and how IAM technologies are likely to evolve in 2025 and beyond.

What are the biggest challenges facing organizations in the IAM space today and how are threats evolving?

The identity landscape is undergoing a profound transformation that goes beyond traditional security paradigms. We’re seeing the rise of ‘quantum identity states,’ where digital identities exist simultaneously across various planes—from cloud environments to IoT ecosystems and emerging metaverse platforms.

As organizations pursue ubiquitous connectivity, they’re grappling with securing identities that are in a state of continuous flux. Traditional perimeter-based models weren’t designed for a world where identity exists everywhere and nowhere at once.

The threat landscape has evolved significantly, with the rise of cognitive attack patterns —AI-driven threats that adapt to defensive measures. High-profile breaches, especially those linked to cloud misconfigurations, underscore a critical truth: security now hinges on understanding and securing the complex web of identity relationships that define digital ecosystems.

Perhaps most notably, we’re facing an identity intelligence deficit—not merely a shortage of IAM professionals, but a gap between traditional identity management and the cognitive capabilities needed to secure identities in an increasingly autonomous digital world.

Looking forward, the convergence of AI, quantum computing, and bio-behavioral authentication will reshape our approach to identity. We’re moving toward ambient identity validation, where authentication is an invisible, continuous process driven by AI that understands the intricate patterns of users’ digital behaviors.

How does the ManageEngine platform help to teams address these challenges, and how do you differentiate the platform in this competitive space?

Our approach with AD360 is centered on integrating disparate IAM systems for cohesive security. AD360’s orchestration capabilities unify various IAM systems, creating a cohesive identity fabric that spans hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This integration supports consistent identity workflows and visibility across applications, enabling a unified view of user activity. With synchronized policies, AD360 enhances security and operational efficiency while providing a holistic identity perspective.

Our Zero Trust-aligned framework continuously validates identities through adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), dynamically adjusting based on contextual elements such as IP address and geolocation. This continuous validation allows seamless enforcement of Zero Trust principles, while Single Sign-On (SSO) enables secure, frictionless access across applications, enhancing productivity and compliance.

With AD360’s Attack Surface Analyzer, organizations can identify potential misconfigurations and cloud security gaps that might lead to data exposure. The tool provides curated insights through dashboards, allowing administrators to address vulnerabilities proactively and avoid breaches associated with misconfiguration errors.

What are your top recommendations for CISOs in the process of looking for an IAM solution?

Modern CISOs must look beyond traditional security checklists. Identity now forms the cognitive foundation of security architecture, and evaluating IAM solutions requires a new perspective.

The concept of identity fabric is more than architecture; it’s a strategic framework reshaping digital trust. CISOs should envision IAM infrastructure as a dynamic ecosystem that spans cloud, on-premises, and future-ready frameworks, including decentralized identity protocols.

Identity hygiene now means more than managing orphaned accounts. It’s about maintaining a clear ‘identity signal’ in an increasingly complex environment. Platforms should detect ‘identity entropy’—the gradual decay of identity integrity—and use self-healing mechanisms to maintain security.

Consider how well the platform fuses identity intelligence, synthesizing behavioral patterns, risk signals, and business contexts into a unified security narrative. Anticipatory security, enabled by AI that can predict identity risks and adjust security postures in real-time, is key for an effective IAM solution.

What trends do you expect to see in the IAM space in 2025?

By 2025, identity management will advance into cognitive identity intelligence.

We’ll see identity management evolve into a system of systems, forming an intelligent mesh that creates identity consciousness across the enterprise. This fabric will not only manage access but predict needs, anticipate risks, and adapt autonomously. Ambient authentication will become a norm, with validation processes running invisibly and continuously.

Identity data engineering will become increasingly sophisticated, shifting toward identity intelligence fusion, where AI systems understand the web of relationships between identities, behaviors, and outcomes. This capability will drive predictive security, neutralizing threats before they materialize.

The convergence of blockchain, quantum cryptography, and biometrics will enable sovereign identity ecosystems, where individuals control their digital identities while organizations achieve high levels of security and compliance.

In your view, what should organizations’ top IAM planning priorities for 2025 be?

Planning for 2025 requires organizations to reimagine identity security. IAM hygiene is evolving into identity ecosystem health, moving beyond account management to self-healing environments that detect decay, predict vulnerabilities, and initiate remediation proactively.

Identity threat intelligence is transforming, with predictive trust models combining behavioral biometrics, environmental signals, and business contexts to create adaptive risk profiles. Quantum-resistant algorithms and neural networks will identify threats that evade traditional security tools.

Architecture must embrace a quantum-ready identity fabric that adapts across traditional, cloud, and emerging environments, supporting new authentication models without needing major overhauls.

IAM strategies must also consider omnipresent identity orchestration, an intelligent layer that integrates physical, digital, and virtual realms, preparing for identity management in IoT, AR, and metaverse contexts.

Organizations should aim for autonomous identity operations—self-evolving ecosystems that adapt to emerging attack patterns and maintain optimal security posture autonomously, balancing efficiency with human oversight.

Further reading:

• Learn more about ManageEngine AD360
• Read our guide to the Top 11 Identity and Access Management Solutions