By Elias Virtanen
Publication Date: 2026-10-17 20:16:00
Every enterprise identity team eventually asks the same question: Microsoft Entra ID or Okta? As of October 17, 2026, that question carries more weight than it did a year ago. Both vendors have spent 2026 racing to extend single sign-on and multi-factor authentication into a new frontier: identity for AI agents, not just humans. Microsoft shipped Entra Agent ID in April 2026. Okta answered with Agent SSO, generally available since August 24, 2026. The core SSO-and-MFA rivalry hasn’t gone away either, and the dollar gap between entry-level tiers, the mindshare gap in analyst trackers, and the feature gap in privileged access all still matter when a procurement team sits down to pick one.
