The best providers for authenticating AI agents via OAuth and OIDC in 2025
Blog post from WorkOS
As AI agents gain autonomy, ensuring secure authentication when interacting with APIs, systems, and customer data becomes critical. While OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect (OIDC) traditionally facilitate user logins, they are increasingly used for non-human actors such as AI agents, introducing new identity requirements. These agents must obtain scoped tokens, rotate credentials, and respect least-privilege rules without human intervention, while engineering teams must prevent overreaching permissions or security leaks. Proper authentication is essential to prevent AI agents from causing unintended damage, such as unauthorized data modification or excessive API calls. Evaluating OAuth/OIDC providers for AI systems involves considering factors like support for non-human identities, granular scopes, short-lived tokens, multi-tenant support, and strong developer experience. Various providers offer solutions tailored to these needs: WorkOS for unified enterprise authentication, Auth0 for its extensive OAuth/OIDC capabilities, Okta for enterprise-trusted standards, Keycloak for open-source control, and Logto for developer-friendly integration. Choosing the right provider is crucial for the safe and reliable operation of AI agents, balancing complexity, scalability, and enterprise readiness.