Why is ServiceNow paying over $1 billion for Veza? The identity hegemony strategy in the era of AI agents

ServiceNow's reported final-stage acquisition of identity security unicorn Veza at a valuation of over $1 billion signals a fundamental turning point in enterprise IT architecture that goes beyond a mere expansion of its security portfolio. This acquisition is analyzed as an essential move to bridge the "last mile of governance and trust" that has been missing from ServiceNow's autonomous enterprise strategy centered on "AI agents."

Entering 2025, ServiceNow established a foundation for "agentic AI" with natural language understanding and autonomous reasoning capabilities through its acquisition of Moveworks ($2.85 billion). However, as these AI agents autonomously execute actions on core enterprise systems and data, the challenge has become clear: traditional human-centric Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) and perimeter defense models are nearly incapable of properly controlling and monitoring their permissions. Because AI agents call APIs and manipulate data in milliseconds without going through human-like approval processes, static Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is no longer sufficient.