Beyond Light IGA: Where Identity Governance Is Heading
6 Nov 2026
Nexis is named in the 2026 Gartner® Innovation Insight: IVIP and IAM Augmentation Vendors Are Disrupting Light IGA. Gartner has identified “a recent trend wherein some identity visibility and intelligent platforms (IVIP) vendors are broadening their solution portfolios by incorporating advanced IGA functionalities such as automated access certifications, continuous access evaluation to prevent access creep and enforcement of least privileged access.” From our perspective at Nexis, this points to a broader shift in identity governance. Visibility and intelligence are becoming an increasingly important foundation for understanding access across complex identity environments and for turning that understanding into better governance decisions.
Where Light IGA Reaches Its Limits
Gartner states that “Light IGA vendors deliver a streamlined, simplified alternative to full IGA platforms, targeting organizations that require essential identity governance without the complexity or resource demands of enterprise-scale solutions ” Core usages of light IGA include user provisioning and deprovisioning, access requests and approvals, role based access management, joiner, mover and leaver workflows, access certification, and audit and reporting.
Gartner also notes that “these solutions typically offer fewer advanced access governance, policy enforcement, compliance, customization, and enforcement capabilities than full IGA platforms.”
In our experience, this distinction becomes particularly relevant in large and regulated organizations. Banks, insurers, manufacturers, and other enterprises rarely operate with one clean source of identity data. Identity information is distributed across IGA, PAM, directories, legacy applications, custom systems, cloud environments, and SaaS platforms. At the same time, requirements such as DORA, NIS2, and MaRisk increase expectations around auditing, reporting, access governance, and segregation of duties.
This is where organizations need to look beyond the initial simplicity of a solution. From our perspective, the relevant question is not only how quickly a governance tool can be introduced, but whether it can support the organization as its identity landscape, regulatory requirements, and governance needs evolve.
Visibility and Intelligence as a Foundation
“Gartner identifies a recent trend in which some IVIP vendors are broadening their portfolios by adding advanced IGA functionality, including automated access certifications, continuous access evaluation, and enforcement of least privileged access.”
Gartner recommends that “organizations consider IVIP vendors offering capabilities such as identity visibility, identity graphing, advanced analytics using AI, and a single pane of glass.”
We believe this changes the starting point for identity governance.
Rather than beginning with an individual governance process, organizations can first establish a consistent view of identity and access data across their environment. From there, analytics can help reveal relationships, anomalies, excessive access, and governance gaps that may otherwise remain hidden across individual systems.
This becomes even more relevant as identity landscapes expand beyond employees. Human identities now coexist with service accounts, machine identities, and increasingly AI agents. In our view, governing this environment effectively requires a shared understanding of who or what has access to which resources, why that access exists, and whether it remains appropriate.
Visibility Matters When It Leads to Action
For us, however, visibility is only the beginning.
A unified view can reveal excessive access, unusual relationships, or segregation of duties conflicts. The real value emerges when organizations can use those insights to improve their identity landscape.
An over provisioned entitlement, for example, becomes meaningful when it can be reviewed and adjusted. A segregation of duties conflict across business and privileged access environments becomes useful when it can be assessed, resolved, and documented. An anomaly becomes actionable when it can inform a recertification or remediation process.
This is where our perspective goes beyond visibility alone. We see intelligence, governance, and remediation as closely connected parts of the same process.
How NEXIS Approaches This
This principle has shaped the development of the NEXIS Platform for many years. NEXIS brings identity related data from different IAM environments together and provides a unified foundation for analysis and governance across the enterprise.
Identity Grids and more than 20 matrix views help translate complex relationships between identities, roles, accounts, and entitlements into views that business and IAM teams can understand and validate. Cross application segregation of duties controls can then identify conflicts that may remain invisible when systems are assessed separately.
NICO, the NEXIS Intelligent Co Pilot, adds explainable AI to governance processes by supporting users during recertification and highlighting anomalies while providing context for its recommendations.
For us, the important point is that these capabilities do not end with analysis. NEXIS combines analytics with role and policy modeling, recertification, governance workflows, and remediation capabilities. The objective is to create a continuous connection between understanding access, making informed decisions, and improving the resulting identity landscape.
Looking Ahead
Gartner sees “IVIP and IAM augmentation vendors reshaping the light IGA market through advanced functionality and real time visibility.”
Our view is that the distinction will become increasingly important as identity environments grow more diverse. For complex organizations, visibility without governance is not enough, and governance without comprehensive visibility has clear limitations.
The opportunity is to bring both together: a shared understanding of access across human and non human identities, combined with the intelligence and governance capabilities needed to act on it.
See how NEXIS turns identity visibility into action in a live walkthrough:
References
[1] Gartner, Innovation Insight: IVIP and IAM Augmentation Vendors Are Disrupting Light IGA, Brian Guthrie and Rebecca Archambault, 11 September 2026. Gartner subscribers can access the report here: https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/8376349
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