AI-Driven Governance and Zero Trust Automation for Continuous Cloud Compliance and Secure Access
Abstract
The expansion of cloud-native infrastructures, hybrid architectures, and distributed digital ecosystems has intensified the need for continuous security verification, rapid threat detection, and policy-driven governance. Conventional perimeter-based trust models have proven inadequate for protecting agile, API-driven, multi-cloud environments where identities, workloads, and data flows shift dynamically. Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), as formalized by NIST (2020), has emerged as a strategic response to these challenges, emphasizing continuous authentication, least-privilege access, and context-aware policy enforcement. At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have enabled more adaptive, predictive, and automated governance mechanisms that support cloud compliance and security decision-making at scale. In this paper, an integrated AI-Driven Governance and Zero Trust Automation (AIG-ZTA framework is designed to deliver continuous cloud compliance and secure access across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The framework combines Zero Trust principles with machine learning–based behavioural analytics, automated policy orchestration, and dynamic risk scoring. Through architectural modeling, empirical evaluation, and multi-cloud simulation, the study demonstrates how AI-driven governance enhances identity assurance, reduces policy drift, and accelerates compliance verification. Results show that organizations adopting AIG-ZTA can achieve more resilient cloud security postures, improved real-time access decisions, and scalable, auditable compliance management. The paper concludes by highlighting future research directions, including autonomous ZTA systems, AI-driven compliance reasoning, and the fusion of generative models with continuous authorization pipelines.
Keywords
AI-Driven Governance, Automated Policy Orchestration, Multi-Cloud Security Architecture, Zero Trust Architecture
Citations
IRE Journals:
Nathaniel Adeniyi Akande, Olatunde Ayomide Olasehan, Jeremiah Folorunso Oluwagbotemi, Cynthia Udoka Duruemeruo, Sopuluchukwu Ani "AI-Driven Governance and Zero Trust Automation for Continuous Cloud Compliance and Secure Access" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals Volume 6 Issue 9 2023 Page 545-559 https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV6I9-1712964
IEEE:
Nathaniel Adeniyi Akande, Olatunde Ayomide Olasehan, Jeremiah Folorunso Oluwagbotemi, Cynthia Udoka Duruemeruo, Sopuluchukwu Ani
"AI-Driven Governance and Zero Trust Automation for Continuous Cloud Compliance and Secure Access" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals, 6(9) https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV6I9-1712964
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