Cerbos has been named a Sample Vendor for AuthZEN in the Gartner® Hype Cycle™ for Digital Identity, 2026.
AuthZEN is the OpenID Foundation standard for authorization. It does for access decisions what OIDC and SAML did for login, giving applications, API gateways and AI agents one common way to ask whether a request is allowed. The Authorization API 1.0 was formally ratified in January 2026, and our co-founder and CPO Alex Olivier co-chairs the AuthZEN working group.
Why a standard authorization API matters for AI agents
In most enterprises, access decisions are made in many places, each with its own format and its own integration. That held up while most requests came from a person using an application. AI agents change the picture, because one agent can call many tools and services in a single task, often on behalf of a person, and every one of those calls needs a decision.
When enforcement points speak one protocol, an application, a gateway and an MCP server can ask the same question in the same way, and the policy behind the answer can change without touching the code that asks. We've written about what this means for MCP authorization, and about what AuthZEN standardizes for enterprise teams.
How the Cerbos platform supports the AuthZEN Authorization API
The Cerbos authorization management platform supports the AuthZEN Authorization API, including single and batch access evaluation, so an AuthZEN-compliant enforcement point can call it directly. Cerbos Synapse also exposes AuthZEN endpoints natively, and can add identity and resource data to a request before the decision is made. The endpoints are covered in the API documentation.
Standards take years to become the default. The teams adopting AuthZEN now are making sure the way their systems ask for access decisions is not tied to any one vendor's API.
Try Cerbos to see how access policies are managed, tested and audited in one place, or book a call to talk through how Cerbos can help secure your applications, gateways, workloads, and AI agents.
Gartner, Hype Cycle for Digital Identity, 2026, By Zachary Smith, Nayara Sangiorgio, 6 July 2026.
GARTNER and HYPE CYCLE are trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Tagged in
