Identity Provider (IdP)

An identity provider is like the management office that issues building access cards. With a single employee badge, you can pass through many doors inside a company without having a separate key made for each one. In the same way, once an identity provider confirms who you are, multiple services simply accept that verification instead of checking it again themselves.

In the past, this verification had to happen every single time someone logged in. Each service required its own username and password, or a separate pop-up authentication step. When a company connects an identity provider at the organizational level, an administrator can set access permissions in advance, so users belonging to that organization can go straight into approved places without pulling out a separate key for every door.

Recently, this same approach has started being used not just for people but for AI accessing tools and data. When an administrator sets permission rules through an identity provider, users can access various external tools connected to an AI service without needing to authenticate separately each time.

The article explains that once a company administrator sets permissions using a single Identity Provider (IdP), users in that organization can access connected tools and data without popping up a separate login window each time. Here, the identity provider isn't the name of a specific company's product — it's a general concept referring to the authentication system a company already has in place. It's worth not confusing this: Claude didn't build a new identity provider, it added a feature to connect with a company's existing authentication system.