What KYA is and where the term comes from
KYC (know your customer) is the check a bank runs on a client before giving them access to money. Once AI agents start shopping, stores and payment networks gain a new counterparty: not a person and not an ordinary bot, but software acting on a person’s instruction. Know Your Agent (KYA) is the set of practices and protocols that answer three questions about that counterparty: who it is, who stands behind it and what it is allowed to do.
Three layers of verification
| Layer | Question | Mechanisms as of September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | Which agent has arrived and which operator launched it | Web Bot Auth request signatures; the Visa Trusted Agent Protocol; payment networks’ key directories of registered agents |
| Authority | What exactly the user has permitted | AP2 payment mandates; Mastercard Verifiable Intent |
| Behaviour | Whether the agent stays within what was permitted | monitoring of requests and transactions, operator reputation |
The layers do not replace each other. A signature proves that a request came from a specific agent, but says nothing about whether the user allowed it to spend $500. A mandate records the permission, but does not protect against an agent that behaves abnormally afterwards.
Who is pushing KYA forward
- Visa and Mastercard. The Trusted Agent Protocol (Visa, 14 October 2025) and Mastercard Agent Pay both use Web Bot Auth: a registered agent signs its requests and the merchant verifies the signature against the network’s key directory.
- FIDO Alliance. On 28 April 2026 the alliance formed the Agentic Authentication Technical Working Group, focused on how users securely delegate actions to agents. Its chairs come from CVS Health, Google and OpenAI. A payments working group was set up alongside it, to which Google contributed AP2 and Mastercard contributed Verifiable Intent.
- Ant International, Mastercard and Visa. On 9 September 2026 the companies announced work on cross-network KYA interoperability: tying every agent to a validated operator, shared certification requirements for agents and continuous transaction monitoring.
What it means for a store
Bot protection configured to block anything automated starts turning away customers once agentic commerce arrives. KYA lets you move from a binary decision to a policy: a signed agent from a known directory gets access to the catalogue and the checkout, an unsigned scraper gets restrictions. For how these visits distort analytics, see AI agent traffic.
Where to start: a checklist
- Pull from your server or CDN logs which agents already visit the site, by User-Agent and by the presence of signatures.
- Check whether your CDN or WAF can verify Web Bot Auth signatures, and set up a separate rule for signed agents.
- Separate browsing from buying: TAP defines different signature tags for each.
- Log the agent identifier, the operator and the stated intent next to the order — it helps with disputes and returns.
- Never trust the User-Agent alone: any script can fake it.