Strategic acquisition to unify PAM and just-in-time runtime authorization for administrators, developers, non-human identities, and AI agents in a single platform
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2026, a pioneering provider of solutions for securing human and machine identities through centralized authorization, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire StrongDM, the universal access management company purpose-built for modern engineering, DevOps, and AI-driven environments. Delinea's leadership in enterprise privileged access management (PAM), combined with StrongDM's just-in-time (JIT) runtime authorization capabilities and developer-first access model, will form a new class of identity security platform designed for continuous, always-on environments.
As AI adoption accelerates and non-human identities (NHIs) continue to outnumber human users, enterprises must secure privileged access in real-time across increasingly diverse cloud-native, hybrid, and on-prem environments. StrongDM's JIT runtime authorization will extend the Delinea Platform powered by Iris AI to deliver a single, integrated policy, governance, and audit layer that enforces least privilege at the moment of action. This approach will support both ephemeral and credential-based access models while enabling a deliberate transition toward a zero standing privilege (ZSP) model that doesn't require enterprises of any size to abandon existing PAM investments or infrastructure.
"By viewing your JIT / ZSP initiative as a journey, you can make measurable progress on reducing the attack surface created by standing privileges in your environment - while minimizing impact on operations and maximizing returns on existing investments in PAM technologies." - Gartner, Reduce Risk Through a Just-in-Time Approach to PAM, Paul Mezzera, Nayara Sangiorgio, Michael Kelley, Abhyuday Data, Felix Gaehtgens, April 2025
"As we move forward scaling agentic AI, choosing the right partner to secure AI agents from day one is critical," said Stephen Davis, CISO at Hubbell Incorporated. "Bringing together Delinea and StrongDM will give us a unified way to monitor, authorize, and govern privileged access for IT teams, developers, and AI agents across on-prem and cloud environments - all in a single platform."
Redefining identity security for continuous, always-on environments
The combination of Delinea and StrongDM reflects the evolution of traditional session-based PAM into a scalable, modern identity security control plane that governs privileged access across all human and NHIs through JIT runtime authorization. This approach enables continuous evaluation and response, which is particularly valuable for organizations delivering seamless access to cloud infrastructure, production databases, and automated CI/CD pipelines that developers demand while providing the compliance and control that security requires.
Together, the combined platform will deliver:
- Frictionless, secure developer access to sensitive resources such as cloud infrastructure, databases, and containers, while enforcing least privilege in real time;
- Reduced exposure to credential theft, phishing, and software supply chain attacks by minimizing persistent credentials;
- AI governance and real-time control over autonomous agents through unified visibility, auditability, and continuous policy enforcement for privileged actions taken by machine and agentic AI identities; and
- Stronger compliance and simplified operations via a single, centralized control plane for end-to-end privileged access policy, authorization, and audit across on-prem, cloud, and SaaS environments for all human and machine identities.
"Stolen or lost credentials remain the number one cause of breaches, which makes identity the core control layer for modern security," said Art Gilliland, CEO at Delinea. "This acquisition will accelerate our evolution toward modern, ephemeral access models typical of cloud and AI-centric environments, empowering organizations to secure NHIs with the same rigor applied to human access. We're giving organizations the freedom to move faster without compromising security or control."
Tim Prendergast, CEO at StrongDM, adds: "Access models designed for static infrastructure and human users simply don't work in continuous cloud and AI-driven environments. By joining Delinea, we will deliver runtime authorization at enterprise scale, securing every privileged action through policy-based enforcement that stays invisible to developers and operators. This is identity security built for how modern enterprises actually run."
The combined platform will allow organizations to modernize identity security without forcing a rip-and-replace approach while enabling a progressive transition away from static privilege and credential-based access models. Together, Delinea and StrongDM will redefine identity security for enterprises where developers, machines, and AI agents all require privileged access without slowing the business down.
Piper Sandler served as financial advisor to Delinea. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory review, and is expected to close in Q1 2026. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Find out why top analyst firms, including Gartner, Forrester, Frost & Sullivan, KuppingerCole, and more, consistently recognize the Delinea Platform as a market leader for PAM and NHI management: https://delinea.com/strongdm
About Delinea?
Delinea is a pioneer in securing human and machine identities through intelligent, centralized authorization, empowering organizations to seamlessly govern their interactions across the modern enterprise. Leveraging AI-powered intelligence, Delinea's leading cloud-native Identity Security Platform applies context throughout the entire identity lifecycle - across cloud and traditional infrastructure, data, SaaS applications, and AI. It is the only platform that enables you to discover all identities - including workforce, IT administrator, developers, and machines - assign appropriate access levels, detect irregularities, and respond to threats in real-time. With deployment in weeks, not months, 90% fewer resources to manage than the nearest competitor, and a 99.995% uptime, the Delinea Platform delivers robust security and operational efficiency without complexity. Learn more about Delinea on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube.
About StrongDM
StrongDM is the universal access management company reimagining Privileged Access Management through the Identity Firewall architecture. Built for enterprises managing explosive growth in both human and machine identities, StrongDM provides real-time authorization enforcement that governs privileged actions across infrastructure, applications, and cloud environments - not just initial access. The platform unified traditional PAM capabilities with advanced authorization controls, evaluating identity, context, and policy to authorize or block every privileged operation. Security teams gain action-level visibility and control, while end users experience frictionless access. StrongDM enables organizations to evolve toward continuous, context-aware identity governance.
Media Contact Justin Ordman Corporate Communications Director PR@delinea.com
