Comparison · RedactSure Research
Chris Sowa · Founder, RedactSure
Published
Last updated
RedactSure vs Microsoft Entra Agent ID: 2026 Comparison & Alternative
Microsoft Entra Agent ID governs an agent's identity in the directory; RedactSure, a Microsoft Entra Agent ID alternative built for AI agents, governs the screen its model reads. RedactSure is an alternative way to think about agent browsing security, because it protects sensitive data as it is rendered on a screen, before an agent uses it.
What does a Microsoft Entra Agent ID alternative change about what an agent reads, who approves its action and what record survives? The identity answers who the agent is, and the page answers what it carries away. Entra's control sits in the directory, where a role decides who may reset a credential. RedactSure leaves that identity and changes the page, so the model works with INV_001 and ACCT_001 and the bank details appear only at the payment destination a named person approved.
This page quotes Microsoft's Entra pages and follows one record: a vendor invoice in an accounts-payable platform the organization bought, opened by an agent with its own Entra identity. What Is a Tethered Agent? describes the authority an agent carries into the screen, and What Is Render-Layer Tokenization? describes what changes on it.
Key findings
- As a Microsoft Entra Agent ID alternative for agent work, RedactSure replaces the values on the rendered invoice before any model reads it, so the agent works with INV_001 and ACCT_001 and the real bank details are released only at the approved payment destination (What Is Render-Layer Tokenization?).
- An identity decides which system an agent may enter, not which values that system renders, so a permitted session can still put a real bank account in front of the model; data minimisation asks for data "adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed" (Regulation 2016/679, 2016).
- Microsoft's two Entra pages reviewed cover restoring a deleted identity and resetting a password under an administrator role; neither describes a control over what a model receives from a screen (Microsoft, Restore, 2026).
- Resetting a credential is a role rather than a routine: "You must have at least the Password Administrator role to reset a user's password", and the directory "autogenerates a temporary password for the user", which is an administrator's decision (Microsoft, Reset, 2026).
- Deletion does not end it at once: "the account remains in a suspended state for 30 days", and past that window "the permanent deletion process automatically starts and can't be stopped" (Microsoft, Restore, 2026).
How do the two compare side by side?
The table sets Microsoft's wording beside what a governed environment does, and the last column names the check to run.
| Dimension | Microsoft Entra Agent ID, per its pages | RedactSure | What to verify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the control sits | An administrator holds the role: "You must have at least the Password Administrator role to reset a user's password" (Microsoft, Reset, 2026) | On the screen the agent works in, before any model reads it | The exact place a value is replaced |
| How coverage starts | An identity in the directory, restored or removed by an administrator who signs in "as at least a User Administrator" (Microsoft, Restore, 2026) | The agent works inside the governed environment; the application is unchanged | How many of the agent's applications are covered today |
| What the model receives | The pages describe the identity object and its credential, and say nothing about what a model receives from a screen (Microsoft, Restore, 2026) | The invoice with tokens such as INV_001 and ACCT_001, consistent for the whole run | One screen, captured exactly as the model saw it |
| How real values are restored | A credential is reissued for the person: "Microsoft Entra ID autogenerates a temporary password for the user", and "The temporary password never expires" (Microsoft, Reset, 2026) | Released at an approved destination when a named person approves the payment | Who authorizes it, and where that is recorded |
| Who approves an action | A role held in advance decides whether the account continues to exist (Microsoft, Restore, 2026) | A named person approves every payment, submission and record change (What Is Supervised Delegation?) | A person's name, not a rule |
| The audit record | A deleted identity stays visible for 30 days; past that, "A permanently deleted user can't be restored by anyone, including Microsoft customer support" (Microsoft, Restore, 2026) | Every screen as tokens, every action and every approval, in one control record exported to the customer's SIEM | Whether the record shows what the model saw |
Read down the two middle columns and the difference is the object each control governs. Entra governs an identity in the directory, where a role decides who may reset it and deletion leaves a 30-day window, so its answer to what the model saw stops at sign-in. RedactSure governs the page the agent reads, and its answer is one record of the screen as it rendered. The two also differ on who releases a real value: an administrator acting on an account, or the person who approves the payment that What Is Supervised Delegation? sets out. Identity systems centralize the credential so it need not sit in code (AWS, 2026), which changes where it is stored, not what a page displays.
What does Microsoft Entra Agent ID protect, and where does it act?
Every agent needs an identity, and Microsoft's Entra pages show what it looks like to an administrator. A credential is reissued under a role: "You must have at least the Password Administrator role to reset a user's password", and the directory "autogenerates a temporary password for the user", a password that "never expires", so a credential issued for one task stays valid until someone changes it (Microsoft, Reset, 2026). Removal is a documented operation: "the account remains in a suspended state for 30 days", restorable "along with all its properties", after which "the permanent deletion process automatically starts and can't be stopped" (Microsoft, Restore, 2026). One role resets a credential and another restores the account.
Each benefit depends on one condition: an administrator acting on the identity, before or after the agent's session. The pages cover that object and do not describe what a model receives from a screen, so a session admitted by a valid identity still renders whatever the application displays (Microsoft, Restore, 2026).
What does an agent read when it opens a vendor invoice?
The record is a vendor invoice in an accounts-payable platform the organization bought: a bank account, an amount and an approver. The agent holds its own Entra identity, signs in, and opens the invoice the queue assigns to it.
The identity control has finished: it decided that the account exists and may reach the platform. What the model receives next comes from the platform: the vendor's real bank account, the amount and any note in the description. On bought software the role model is the vendor's own, which on eligible plans lets a team "define your own agent roles and assign agents to those roles" (Zendesk, 2026), a decision about which invoices open rather than what one shows.
Least privilege, the identity industry's standard answer, governs actions and credentials and not the content of the screen, as What Is Least Exposure? sets out. The invoice passes every identity check and still shows the model a real bank account, and a bank-account change in the description is a plausible instruction to a model that can edit the payment. If the agent borrowed a finance user's session instead, the platform's log records that person, the identity gap What Is a Tethered Agent? describes. The record of that screen is the missing half: 36 of the 86 AI security and data protection products reviewed describe a record of what the model was shown, all of them prompts, conversations or request payloads at their own gateway or pipeline, and none of the 86 describes recording the rendered screen an agent read when it acted (How Many AI Security Products Control What an AI Agent Sees?).
Which control fits which work?
Keep Microsoft Entra Agent ID for
- An identity of their own in the directory, with an administrator who can reissue the credential or remove the account (Microsoft, Reset, 2026).
- Removing an agent without losing the record at once, since the account stays suspended for 30 days and can be restored (Microsoft, Restore, 2026).
- Separating duties, because a password reset needs the Password Administrator role and a restore needs a User Administrator (Microsoft, Reset, 2026).
Add RedactSure for
- Agents reading screens in applications the organization bought, where the model receives INV_001 and ACCT_001 instead of the bank details, as What Is Render-Layer Tokenization? describes.
- A named person approving each payment, submission or record change under the permissions the team already runs, which What Is Supervised Delegation? sets out.
- The record of what the model received on each screen, exported to the customer's SIEM, as What Is an AI Control Record? describes.
Most teams need both, and the split above shows which protects the screen.
How do you test it on one workflow?
Set aside an afternoon, run one real workflow with both vendors present, and write down each answer.
Step 1. Choose the invoice screen the agent will actually open, with the bank-account field visible, rather than a data-flow diagram or a screenshot.
Step 2. Ask each vendor to replay, field by field, what the model's input held on that screen, and save the output. That output decides the question: a bank account or a token.
Step 3. List every application the workflow touches and mark each as covered by an Entra identity, by a render-layer control, both or neither. The last group is the exposure on the first day, and the count belongs in the plan.
Step 4. Trace the bank account from token back to its real value: what released it, at which destination, and whose name sits in the record. Ask for the time of the release and the field the approver saw, then compare the two answers.
Step 5. Calculate first-day coverage. If the workflow touches six applications and two hold an Entra identity, the identity side covers two of six. Compare the two costs that differ: the directory work, and the payment work the agent cannot start, and read both against the coverage count before a scope is quoted.
What does a governed environment change?
A governed environment is a category of control rather than a product feature. The agent works under its own session and identity, and it sees a different screen because values are replaced with consistent tokens before the model reads anything. Real values resolve only at approved destinations at the moment of an approved action; a named person approves every payment, submission and record change; and each screen, action and approval goes to a record exported to the SIEM.
Meta's researchers set the limit at three properties, because until injection is reliably stopped "agents must satisfy no more than two of the following three properties within a session": untrusted input, sensitive data and a state change (Meta AI, 2025).
Human approval covers the state change and not the first two. OpenAI's governance paper calls approval "a standard way to limit egregious failures", and asks that a user be able to "activate a graceful shutdown procedure for its agent at any time" (Shavit et al., 2023). IBM's control plane enforces policy at runtime so that "agent behavior stays within defined boundaries" (IBM, 2026). Neither changes the values on the page, a split RedactSure vs Microsoft Agent 365: 2026 Comparison & Alternative sets out for the same buyer.
What the record shows
Whose name is on the release when an agent pays an invoice: the administrator's, or the person who approves the payment? The directory answers half of it. An Entra identity decides that the agent may open the platform, and an administrator decides whether that identity continues to exist. The page the agent opens then renders the vendor's bank account in full, and a render-layer control replaces it with ACCT_001 before the model reads it, which is the job RedactSure, as the Microsoft Entra Agent ID alternative for agent work, does for this record. Entra's coverage is the identity and its credential, down to the 30-day restore window, and no page reviewed describes what a model receives from a screen. One test fits on a single invoice: open it with both products in place, then ask whose name released the bank account and what the model held before it.
Methodology and limitations
This page rests on two Microsoft Learn pages on Entra identity administration, a Meta AI research note, an OpenAI whitepaper, IBM's control-plane announcement, AWS documentation on agent credentials, Zendesk's help center and the GDPR text, with RedactSure research pages. The Microsoft pages cover directory administration: restoring or permanently deleting an identity, and resetting a password under an administrator role. Vendor pages were read as of October 22, 2026, and each Sources line carries the date for its page. Public documentation read in full gives a sound view of where each product applies its control.
The products on this page are described from documentation; none was tested for this page, and no customer of either is described. Both change, and the page carries its date. RedactSure is deploying now with enterprise and government customers. The invoice is an illustrative record type, not an organization. Compliance determinations belong to the organization's counsel, assessors and security team, and nothing here replaces a pilot of one workflow.
Frequently asked questions
Does Microsoft Entra Agent ID protect the data an agent reads in a bought application?
No. Its pages cover the identity in the directory and the credential a role can reset, with a 30-day restore window after deletion (Microsoft, Restore, 2026). What the application renders after sign-in is its own to decide, so a vendor bank account reaches the model. The identity shows the agent may be there and nothing about what it carries away.
What does the model receive when an agent opens an invoice under its Entra identity?
The invoice as the platform draws it, including the bank account and any note in the description. Entra's control finished at sign-in, and the pages reviewed describe no substitution on the page itself (Microsoft, Restore, 2026). A render-layer control puts ACCT_001 where the account number was, before the model reads anything, so the value never enters its context.
Who approves the payment the agent prepares?
An administrator approves access, not the payment. The role on Microsoft's pages decides who may reset a credential, and a deleted identity is suspended for 30 days rather than approving or refusing a transfer (Microsoft, Restore, 2026). Approval of the payment belongs with a person who sees the invoice and the destination, a distinction Does Human Approval Stop Actions Triggered by Prompt Injection? sets out.
What record shows what the model read on that screen?
Not from the pages reviewed. The Entra pages record the identity and its lifecycle: who may reset it, when it was deleted, and the 30-day window before permanent deletion (Microsoft, Restore, 2026). Nothing there records the fields an agent read on an invoice. RedactSure's AI Control Record keeps each screen as tokens with the action and approver, which is what an auditor asks for when a payment changes.
Does deleting the agent's Entra identity stop it immediately?
No. "After you delete a user, the account remains in a suspended state for 30 days", and it can be restored with its properties inside that window (Microsoft, Restore, 2026). Permanent deletion then starts on its own and cannot be stopped. A team that treats deletion as an instant cutoff should know which state it is in, and that neither reaches what the model read.
Can a team keep Entra and still cover the screen?
Yes. Most organizations should keep the directory control, because an identity of its own with a documented offboarding path is the first thing an agent needs. The screen is the part those pages do not cover, and a render-layer control covers it without changing the platform. The two answer different questions about the same invoice.
How RedactSure closes the gap between an identity and the screen
An Entra identity decides that an agent may open the invoice, and the platform then shows it the vendor's bank account in full. Microsoft's pages stop at the directory object: a deleted identity waits 30 days for a restore.
The environment that enforces this is built by RedactSure, an AI agent controls, governance and data protection company.
Before: the agent opens the invoice under the finance user's session, and the model receives the vendor name, the account number and the amount, so a line of text can redirect the payment. Inside the governed environment: the invoice shows INV_001 and ACCT_001, and the account number resolves to the payment system only when the named controller approves it. The record shows which fields the model read and who approved.
RedactSure is deploying now with enterprise and government customers.
Everyone else controls where data can go. RedactSure controls what the AI can see.
See it on your own workflow
Protecting the sensitive data an agent could read on a screen is a needed part of any solution that includes Microsoft Entra Agent ID. Bring one invoice and see, with test values, the screen and the approval it waits for. Book a demo