Know Your Agent – Definition & Meaning

Definition of Know Your Agent

: a process for verifying an AI agent's identity, the person or organization it represents, and the scope of authority granted to it before allowing the agent to access services, exchange data, or initiate transactions
- The payment network used Know Your Agent checks to confirm that the shopping bot had permission to spend the customer's money.
- A KYA record linked the agent to its operator and documented which merchants, amounts, and actions were authorized.

Origin & history

first known use2025

Know Your Agent adapts the language of Know Your Customer and Know Your Business to autonomous software. The phrase appeared in agent-identity and agentic-payment work by 2025 and became more prominent in 2026 as payment networks, financial institutions, and identity providers developed ways to recognize agents and bind them to human or business principals.

Editorial references

Sources & further reading

4 sources

Agentic Commerce and Payments Standards Workshop Presentation · World Wide Web Consortium · 2025-11-13
How Agentic AI Will Reshape Payments Policy Note · International Monetary Fund · 2026-04
Who's behind the AI agent? Solving the identity challenge in agentic commerce Industry Article · Mastercard · 2026-10-08
Know your agent: building the foundation of autonomous commerce Independent Industry Commentary · TechRadar Pro · 2026-06-26

Test yourself

Which of these is the meaning of Know Your Agent?

Cite this entry

"Know Your Agent." AI Dictionary, Dadgogo, https://dadgogo.com/dictionary/know-your-agent/. Accessed 19 Oct. 2026.