AI visibility report for Keycard.ai
Vertical: Agent Authentication & Identity for AI
AI search visibility benchmark across 5 platforms in Agent Authentication & Identity for AI.
Presence Rate
Top-3 citations across 125 prompt × platform pairs
Sentiment
Peer Ranking
Key Metrics
Platform Breakdown
Gemini Search
ChatGPT
Grok
Perplexity
Google AI ModeOverview
Keycard (Keycard Labs, Inc.) is the identity and access control plane built specifically for autonomous AI agents. Founded in 2024 and launched from stealth in October 2025, the platform resolves composite identity — combining user, device, agent, and task context — to enforce least-privilege policy and issue short-lived, task-scoped credentials at runtime. Unlike traditional IAM systems designed for human-driven interactions, Keycard cryptographically attests to an agent's runtime context via SPIFFE, mTLS, and cloud workload identity, replacing static API keys and shared secrets. Key surfaces include an MCP server SDK, a keycard run CLI for coding agent governance, and a centralized policy console with real-time SIEM streaming. The company has raised $38M from Andreessen Horowitz, Acrew Capital, and boldstart ventures and holds SOC 2 Type II certification.
Keycard is an agent-native identity and access management platform that issues cryptographically verified, task-scoped credentials to AI agents at runtime. It resolves composite identity (user + device + agent + task), enforces declarative policy at every tool call, and streams a tamper-resistant audit trail to existing SIEMs — enabling organizations to deploy autonomous agents in production without sacrificing security or compliance.
Key Facts
- Founded
- 2024
- HQ
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Founders
- Ian Livingstone, Matthew Creager, Jared Hanson
- Employees
- 11-50
- Funding
- $38M
- Status
- Private
Target users
Key Capabilities10
- Composite runtime identity resolution: user + device + agent + task bound at execution time
- Workload attestation via SPIFFE, mTLS, Kubernetes service accounts, and cloud instance IDs
- Task-scoped, short-lived credential issuance — no long-lived secrets or shared API keys
- Runtime policy enforcement at the tool-call boundary (not just at login)
- Policy authoring with observe-only mode, versioning, and instant rollback
- Token exchange: one Keycard JWT redeemed for scoped downstream credentials without proxying data
- keycard run CLI for governing coding agents — in-memory secret injection, mcp.json governance, shell/MCP audit
- Tamper-resistant real-time audit log streaming to SIEM (Splunk, Datadog, OCSF export)
- Department-scoped tool catalog with per-identity install, block, and escalation controls
- SOC 2 Type II certified; supports BYOC, dedicated, and on-premises deployment at Enterprise tier
Key Use Cases7
- Governing coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) on developer laptops and CI environments
- Authenticating and authorizing MCP server tool calls with scoped, per-request credentials
- Replacing long-lived API keys and shared .env secrets with task-bound ephemeral tokens
- Enterprise-wide AI agent governance across departments with identity-scoped tool catalogs
- Real-time compliance auditing of every agent tool call for security and incident response
- Safe multi-agent delegation chaining ensuring sub-agents cannot exceed parent permissions
- Federated identity for AI agents across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments
Keycard.ai customer outcomes
Chime's engineering team adopted Keycard to enable engineers to deploy agents and tools into production without needing to be security or identity experts. Agents were running against production systems within days of implementation.
Recent Trend
How AI describes Keycard.ai
No concise AI response excerpt is available for this brand yet.
Most cited sources
No cited source mix is available for this brand yet.
Alternatives in Agent Authentication & Identity for AI6
Keycard positions itself as the purpose-built, agent-native identity and access control plane — distinct from traditional IAM platforms (Auth0, WorkOS, Stytch) that were designed for human-driven, static interactions.
- Its core differentiation is composite runtime identity resolution (user + device + agent + task), enforcement at the moment of tool call rather than at login, and task-scoped ephemeral credentials that replace long-lived API keys and shared secrets.
- The company is standards-first (OAuth 2.1, WIMSE, MCP, A2A), claiming the first production implementation of OAuth 2.1 Client ID Metadata Documents in MCP.
- Andreessen Horowitz framed it as 'the Auth0 moment for agent access.' Against non-human identity peers (Astrix, Oasis), Keycard emphasizes developer ergonomics and coding-agent tooling (keycard run CLI).
- Against integration platforms (Arcade.dev, Composio, Nango), Keycard emphasizes policy enforcement, audit, and cryptographic attestation rather than connectivity breadth.
Reviews
No third-party review data is publicly available on G2, Gartner Peer Insights, or similar platforms as of April 2026. The platform is in early access and too recently launched to have accumulated scored reviews. The one publicly sourced customer reference is from Chime, whose Principal Product Manager for Generative AI stated agents were running in production within days of adopting Keycard.
Pricing
Three published tiers, all metered on 'transactions' (credential issuance, access validation, token exchange, or step-up approval events).
- Starter
Free, 5,000 transactions/month hard cap, includes RBAC/ABAC/ReBAC and 7-day telemetry retention.
- Team
$500/month, 100,000 transactions included, $1 per 1,000 additional, adds SSO, Zone Policy, 90-day telemetry retention, and email support.
- Enterprise
Contact Sales, custom volume on annual commitment, adds Org Policy, device-based policy, SCIM/AD/LDAP, dedicated/BYOC/on-prem deployment, private networking, customer-managed KMS, OCSF continuous export, and 24/7 support with 99.95% uptime SLA. All plans include every supported protocol (OAuth 2.1, SPIFFE, WIMSE, MCP, A2A, Token Exchange).
Limitations
- Platform launched from stealth in October 2025 and remains in early access as of 2026 — limited production battle-testing at enterprise scale.
- Only one named customer (Chime) has been publicly cited.
- No third-party review scores available on G2 or Gartner Peer Insights.
- Pricing is undisclosed for Enterprise tier.
- Lower tiers lack device-based policy, SCIM/AD/LDAP provisioning, private networking, and SIEM continuous export — capabilities reserved for Enterprise.
- The narrow agent-IAM focus means it does not replace full-stack enterprise IAM needs (MFA for end users, Admin Portal, full directory sync).
- Underlying standards (MCP, A2A, WIMSE) are still evolving, introducing some protocol risk.
Frequently asked questions
Topic Coverage
Prompt-Level Results
| Prompt | Gemini Search | ChatGPT | Grok | Perplexity | Google AI Mode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capability0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What tools let me enforce fine-grained, intent-based access policies for AI agents accessing enterprise systems? | |||||
Which non-human identity platforms can govern AI agents alongside service accounts, API keys, and machine identities? | |||||
Looking for an agent auth solution that supports agent-to-agent delegation and MCP server authentication — what should I evaluate? | |||||
What tools handle both human user auth and AI agent identity under a single platform with granular per-agent permissions? | |||||
Which platforms support ephemeral, task-scoped credentials for AI agents instead of static API keys? | |||||
Developer Experience0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
Which platforms offer the smoothest workflow for testing and debugging agent auth flows during development? | |||||
What tools do AI agent developers actually use day-to-day for handling user-delegated authentication across multiple integrations? | |||||
I'm an ML engineer building agents — which auth platforms let me focus on agent logic instead of wrestling with OAuth plumbing? | |||||
Which agent auth platforms have the best developer experience for managing OAuth tokens, refresh flows, and scoped permissions? | |||||
What agent identity tools have the best docs and SDKs for a small team building their first production AI agent? | |||||
Integrations & Ecosystem0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What tools integrate natively with MCP and the major AI agent frameworks for handling auth in agentic workflows? | |||||
Looking for agent identity infrastructure that plugs into our existing identity provider — which platforms support federation? | |||||
Which agent auth platforms have the widest coverage of pre-built OAuth connectors for popular SaaS APIs? | |||||
Which platforms let AI agents securely access both cloud SaaS tools and on-prem internal systems through one auth layer? | |||||
I'm evaluating agent auth tools for a multi-cloud setup — which ones support cross-environment policy enforcement and audit trails? | |||||
Performance & Reliability0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What are the most battle-tested platforms for securing AI agents in regulated industries like fintech or healthcare? | |||||
I need agent auth that works at the edge with sub-100ms enforcement — which platforms support distributed authorization? | |||||
What auth infrastructure holds up when thousands of AI agents are making concurrent authenticated API calls? | |||||
Which agent auth platforms add the least latency overhead to tool calls when agents need to authenticate in real time? | |||||
Which platforms handle automatic token refresh and rotation reliably enough for production AI agent workloads? | |||||
Setup & First Run0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What tools let me add delegated auth to AI agents without requiring each end user to re-authenticate for every tool call? | |||||
What's the quickest way to add OAuth authentication to AI agents that need to access third-party APIs on behalf of users? | |||||
Looking for a drop-in SDK to handle agent-to-API authentication in a TypeScript codebase — what are my options? | |||||
I'm building an AI agent that needs to connect to a dozen SaaS tools securely — what auth infrastructure should I start with? | |||||
Which platforms make it easiest to set up secure auth for MCP servers without building custom OAuth flows from scratch? | |||||
Strengths
No clear strengths identified yet.
Gaps5
I'm an ML engineer building agents — which auth platforms let me focus on agent logic instead of wrestling with OAuth plumbing?
Competitors on 5 platforms
What's the quickest way to add OAuth authentication to AI agents that need to access third-party APIs on behalf of users?
Competitors on 4 platforms
Which agent auth platforms have the best developer experience for managing OAuth tokens, refresh flows, and scoped permissions?
Competitors on 4 platforms
What tools let me add delegated auth to AI agents without requiring each end user to re-authenticate for every tool call?
Competitors on 3 platforms
What tools integrate natively with MCP and the major AI agent frameworks for handling auth in agentic workflows?
Competitors on 3 platforms
Vertical Ranking
| # | Brand | PresencePres. | Share of VoiceSoV | DocsDocs | BlogBlog | MentionsMent. | Avg PosPos | Sentiment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Auth0 (Okta) | 36.8% | 21.9% | 4.8% | 17.6% | 29.6% | #15.8 | +0.40 |
| 2 | WorkOS | 33.6% | 16.2% | 0.8% | 33.6% | 29.6% | #14.7 | +0.36 |
| 3 | Composio | 30.4% | 21.7% | 1.6% | 2.4% | 26.4% | #24.2 | +0.44 |
| 4 | Nango | 29.6% | 13.6% | 0.0% | 29.6% | 26.4% | #15.1 | +0.41 |
| 5 | Merge | 22.4% | 8.1% | 0.8% | 21.6% | 20.8% | #14.4 | +0.36 |
| 6 | Stytch | 20.8% | 9.5% | 3.2% | 18.4% | 19.2% | #13.8 | +0.36 |
| 7 | Arcade.dev | 10.4% | 5.0% | 0.8% | 9.6% | 10.4% | #31.7 | +0.38 |
| 8 | Descope | 7.2% | 2.1% | 0.0% | 4.0% | 7.2% | #17.3 | +0.39 |
| 9 | Oasis Security | 2.4% | 1.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.4% | #11.5 | +0.67 |
| 10 | Astrix Security | 2.4% | 0.7% | 0.0% | 2.4% | 2.4% | #14.3 | +0.67 |
| 11 | Better Auth | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.8% | #29.0 | +0.80 |
| 12 | Keycard.ai | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | — | — |
| 13 | Operant AI | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | — | — |
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