Okta brings data residency, AI identity security to India

Okta Inc., the US-based independent identity management company, has deepened its India investment with the launch of in-country Okta Platform tenants, enabling data residency and enhanced disaster recovery for Indian enterprises. The move is aimed at helping organisations—particularly in highly regulated sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and healthcare—securely scale their AI adoption while meeting evolving regulatory and compliance requirements.

The local platform tenants, hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), will allow Indian customers to store and process identity data within the country, addressing rising concerns around data sovereignty, governance and operational resilience. The launch comes at a time when Indian enterprises are accelerating AI deployments, even as identity governance and security frameworks struggle to keep pace with the growing use of autonomous systems and machine identities.

Okta’s own research highlights this widening gap. While 91% of organisations globally are already using AI agents, only 10% have a mature strategy or roadmap to manage non-human identities such as bots and autonomous agents. As AI systems gain deeper access to enterprise applications and sensitive data, unmanaged machine identities are emerging as a significant security risk.

To address this challenge, Okta said its identity security fabric provides a unified control plane to manage and secure every identity—human and machine—across applications, workloads and use cases, applying consistent policy, governance and access controls.

“As AI agents enter the workforce, traditional perimeter-based security models are no longer sufficient,” said Stephanie Barnett, vice president, presales and interim general manager for Asia Pacific and Japan at Okta. “Our investment in India reflects the need for a unified identity security fabric that applies the same level of rigor to AI identities as it does to human users, while enabling compliance and trust at scale.”

Data residency has become a critical priority for Indian enterprises following the rollout of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act and tighter sectoral oversight in industries such as banking, insurance and healthcare. By enabling identity data to be stored locally through India-based platform tenants, Okta is helping organisations align internal governance policies with regulatory mandates, while reducing cross-border data exposure and compliance risk. Industry executives say data residency is increasingly influencing cloud and cybersecurity procurement decisions, particularly for companies handling sensitive personal and financial data.

In addition to data sovereignty, the India-based tenants are designed to strengthen business continuity through enhanced disaster recovery capabilities. Okta said its advanced continuity services will help customers remain secure and operational during regional infrastructure outages—an increasing concern as enterprises become more reliant on always-on digital and AI-driven systems.

“AI agents are transforming how work gets done, but they also introduce new identity and security challenges,” said Shakeel Khan, regional vice president and country manager, Okta India. “For Indian enterprises, especially in BFSI and healthcare, securing every identity—human or AI—has become mission-critical. Our in-country deployment ensures sensitive identities and data remain protected within India’s borders.”

Okta said both new and existing customers will be able to deploy the platform in the India region starting early 2026, underscoring the company’s long-term commitment to India’s digital and AI-driven economy.