Identity-Aware AI Gateway: Why Per-User, Per-Role Policy Has to Live at the Request Boundary
An identity-aware AI gateway attaches the enterprise IdP identity to each AI request, evaluates per-user and per-role policy at the request boundary, and commits the audit record with identity context bound at decision time. The architecture differs from generic gateways that operate on application credentials only. The EU AI Act Article 19 identity-of-natural-persons requirement, the NIST agent identity framework, and the post-authentication gap each push the gateway to attach identity at the request rather than the session.