Know Your Agent (KYA): What It Proves, What It Doesn't, and Where to Check

What is Know Your Agent (KYA)?

KYA connects an agent's identity with the party behind it and the permission for its actions. Experian says KYA builds on KYC; Skyfire says checks extend to agent requests and transactions. This comparison summarizes those descriptions.

VeryAI says a standardized verification framework is missing; Persona says shared protocols remain unsettled. The definition above synthesizes these vendor accounts. It is not a single certification scheme.

The four questions every KYA check tries to answer

Which agent is this?

Sumsub says machine identity can use keys, signed tokens, or certificates. Ask which credential identifies this agent and how a receiving system checks it. A display name alone is not that evidence.

Who is responsible for it?

Skyfire says identity binding connects an agent to a responsible principal: a person or organization. Ask who established that connection and what evidence supports it.

What is it allowed to do?

Sumsub says permissions should be granular and time-bound. Request the scope, transaction limits, and expiry. Translate a broad promise of authorization into boundaries your system can evaluate.

Is this specific action within that permission?

Skyfire says authorization can be evaluated continuously or for each sensitive transaction. Compare the actual request with the permission record. In agentic commerce, approval of the agent still leaves the purchase to check.

How KYA verification works (the open standards underneath)

Signed requests

RFC 9421, HTTP Message Signatures, is an IETF Standards Track document for signing and verifying HTTP message components. Visa says its Trusted Agent Protocol uses RFC 9421, with merchants verifying signatures using an agent's public key.

Bot/agent key directories

Individual Internet-Draft draft-meunier-webbotauth-httpsig-protocol-02 describes the Signature-Agent header, a JWKS key directory, and a well-known URI. It is not endorsed by the IETF. Datatracker marks it replaced by draft-ietf-webbotauth-httpsig-protocol; this article does not assess that successor's contents.

Verifiable credentials

W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model v2.0 is a W3C Recommendation dated 15 May 2025. Its roles separate the issuer making claims, the holder presenting credentials, and the verifier evaluating them. That structure helps identify whose assertion you are checking.

Delegated permissions

Skyfire says KYA complements OAuth, which describes access delegated on someone's behalf. Its account distinguishes permission from agent identity. Ask how the identity evidence connects to the actual permission record; a credential and an access scope answer different questions.

KYA claims and how to check them

Every verified badge stands for a specific claim. Separate the claim, the evidence, and the conclusion you can draw. The limits below combine source statements with our reading of what each check covers.

Start with the action your service is being asked to accept. Record the claim in the provider's own words, the evidence supplied, and any unanswered question. Our suggestion is to keep missing evidence visible: a blank field should remain an open question, rather than quietly becoming an assumption.

Request identity: ask to inspect the signature check, not just a badge. Principal binding: establish who vouches for the connection and whether you can inspect their evidence.

Purchase permission: compare the recorded limits with this purchase. Network registration: ask the network how to confirm status; a product page is not a registry result.

Verification badges: obtain the scope and date. Safety: request separate behavioral controls and their evaluation. Exclusivity: align definitions before comparing providers. These are practical review steps, not additional certifications.

Ask for a sample credential and a documented verification procedure before integrating. Follow the record from the signing key to the issuer, responsible party, and permission. If one link cannot be inspected, write down that limit and decide whether the remaining evidence is sufficient for the proposed action.

What a verified agent does not prove

The W3C Recommendation of 15 May 2025 states: Verifiability of a credential does not imply the truth of claims encoded therein.

Skyfire says a KYA credential does not establish that every security or payment check passed. Persona says a verified agent can still be redirected by prompt injection. Identity evidence leaves behavior and information quality to evaluate.

Our further inference: the agent's identity does not authenticate product facts it repeats. Check recall notices, certifications, or energy ratings against the relevant official record, matching the product concerned. The distinction follows W3C's separation of credential verification and claim validation.

A KYA checklist for merchants and product teams

Use these suggested questions alongside the evidence table:

• Can we verify each agent request's signature?
• Who issued the binding credential, and who can revoke it?
• Are purchase limits explicit, with approval records retained for disputes?
• Can the network confirm an agent's registration?
• Do we know the badge's scope, date, expiry, and status?
• Have we evaluated behavior and prompt-injection defenses separately?
• Have we compared equivalent evidence for exclusivity claims?

Persona says assurance, friction, and privacy involve tradeoffs. Ask what information each check needs. Vouched says responsibility can blur between users, platforms, and developers, calling for clearer service terms and dispute processes.

Who offers KYA today (as each vendor describes itself)

This is a source map, with no ranking or recommendation. We have not tested these products. The final column identifies questions their descriptions leave for a buyer to verify.

Several vendors describe human binding; one calls itself the only one. Sumsub says it alone offers human binding. Experian says it offers Human-to-Agent Binding, Persona says it binds agents to real humans, and VeryAI says its model is human-bound. These statements invite comparison; they do not establish identical capabilities. Ask each provider to define the binding and show its evidence.

FAQ

What is Know Your Agent (KYA)?

Know Your Agent (KYA) is a set of checks a business runs before it trusts an AI agent: which agent is acting, which person or company is responsible for it, what it is allowed to do, and whether this specific action fits that permission. It extends Know Your Customer (KYC) to software, and no single standard defines it yet.

How is KYA different from KYC?

KYC checks the person or business behind an account. KYA checks the software agent acting for them: which agent it is, who is responsible for it, and whether a requested action is within its permission. Most sources describe them as working together, with KYA building on KYC rather than replacing it.

Does KYA replace OAuth or API keys?

No. OAuth defines what an agent may access on someone's behalf, and API keys authenticate a credential. KYA adds context about which agent is acting and who stands behind it. Skyfire, a KYA vendor, describes KYA as complementing OAuth, IAM, API keys and payment controls rather than replacing them.

Is a verified AI agent safe to trust?

Not automatically. Verification shows who the agent is and who authorized it, not that its actions or information are correct. A verified agent can still be manipulated by prompt injection. The W3C notes that a verifiable credential does not prove the claims inside it are true.

What standards are used to verify AI agents?

Common building blocks include HTTP Message Signatures (RFC 9421), which Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol uses for signed requests, W3C Verifiable Credentials for portable claims, and OAuth for delegated access. An IETF effort on signed bot traffic is still at draft stage, so no KYA-specific standard is final.

Who is responsible when an AI agent makes an unauthorized purchase?

There is no settled answer yet. Responsibility can be unclear between the user, the platform and the agent's developer. Sources suggest clear terms of service, per-purchase authorization limits, and an audit trail that links the purchase to the person who approved the agent, so disputes can be resolved.