Enterprise SSO for AI Chat Assistants: OIDC and SAML

Large customers expect your admin and ops apps to plug into their identity stack. Turning on single sign on makes security reviews smoother and stops account sprawl, but the details matter. Here is how to enable OIDC and SAML cleanly for your assistant without breaking the embed experience.

Why SSO matters for an embedded assistant

• Admin panels govern prompts, language overrides, and embed styling. They deserve the same protections as a core SaaS product.
• RBAC tied to IdP groups keeps Editors out of billing and Ops-only controls.
• Audit trails tied to an external identity help incident response and compliance.

Choosing between OIDC and SAML

• Prefer OIDC for new tenants. It keeps flows simple, supports modern MFA, and is easier to debug.
• Keep SAML support for entrenched enterprise IdPs and government buyers.
• Store per-tenant metadata (issuer, client ID, redirect URIs, certificates) instead of a global switch so multi-tenant setups stay isolated.

Implementation playbook

1. Separate the embed from SSO: End users of the chat widget should not hit the IdP. Only admins and editors do.
2. Validate assertions rigorously: Check signature, audience, nonce, and expiry. Reject clock skew beyond a small window.
3. Just-in-time provisioning: On first login, create the user record with the right role. If the IdP sends a role you do not recognise, default to Viewer until an admin approves.
4. Deprovisioning: Support SCIM or nightly sync to disable users who leave the org. Treat disabled users as hard failures, not soft warnings.
5. Session handling: Issue short-lived JWTs with tenant and role claims. Refresh with silent re-auth when possible; fall back to an explicit prompt if the IdP requires it.
6. Tenant isolation: Never reuse tokens across tenants. Use distinct service accounts and callback URLs per environment.
7. Fallback behavior: If the IdP is unavailable, show a friendly error and provide a status link. Do not let stale sessions persist indefinitely.

SSO and the rest of the stack

• CSP and origin checks: Keep strict CSP on the embed and perform postMessage origin validation so authenticated admin sessions cannot be hijacked through the widget.
• Audit logging: Record login events, role changes, and impersonation attempts with timestamps and actor IDs.
• Notifications: Send ops alerts when a tenant enables SSO, when logins fail repeatedly, or when certificates near expiry.
• Recovery: Maintain a break-glass local admin for each environment with MFA and tight logging.

How CrawlBot approaches it

• OIDC and SAML are available at launch and configurable per tenant and plan.
• RBAC is baked in: Admin, Editor, and Viewer roles map cleanly to IdP groups.
• Cloud Armor and API gateway rate limits protect the public BFF, while private services stay behind the gateway.
• Audit logs export to GCS or BigQuery so security teams can monitor authentications and admin actions centrally.

SSO is more than a checkbox. A clean implementation shortens procurement cycles, reduces support tickets, and keeps your AI assistant trustworthy for enterprise customers.