Every AI agent, every automated workflow, every new integration creates a new credential to manage, and a new opportunity for that credential to go wrong. The 2026 State of Secrets Sprawl reveals that AI service secrets grew 81% in a single year, and that the breach path increasingly runs through machine identities rather than human ones. GitGuardian shares what practitioners see in the field, from the remediation gap to the governance vacuum, and how to connect secrets security to a mature NHI program.