IT Planning Needed for Passkey Support and Adoption

• Passkeys offer more secure access to applications than user-created passwords, while also effectively eliminating phishing.
• IT groups need to both perform some steps and educate users if they want passkeys to go mainstream in their organizations.
• Microsoft’s support of passkeys is still new and evolving and not available for all Microsoft services.

Passkeys, local cryptographic keys stored securely on a user’s device, offer the potential to help minimize and perhaps someday eliminate passwords. But IT groups must take some steps to prepare their Microsoft Entra ID tenancy and Microsoft Authenticator for use with passkeys. The fundamentals of passkeys are in place as of 2025, but pieces are moving and changing rapidly, and organizations must stay ahead of the changes necessary to support passkeys.

Password-Free Future Awaits?

For enterprises that use passwords today, passkeys provide a seamless way for workers to authenticate without entering a username or password. Microsoft touts passkeys as a path toward a password-free future. However, organizations must consider steps to take before users can fully embrace passkeys in a Microsoft 365 ecosystem.