What is Know Your Agent?

Checks that tie an AI agent that moves money back to the company that runs it, confirm what it is certified to do, and watch how it behaves, the way Know Your Customer checks do for a person.

How does it work?

Know Your Agent, or KYA, borrows its name from Know Your Customer. On September 10, 2026, Ant International, Mastercard and Visa began work on a Know-Your-Agent interoperability framework. It builds on Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Verifiable Intent and Ant’s Agentic Mobile Protocol. The work centers on three ideas: traceability back to the agent’s operator, shared certification, and continuous monitoring. A human signatory is checked once at onboarding. An agent is watched on every transaction.

Why does it matter in finance ops?

Any agent you deploy to pay suppliers will need an identity a network recognizes, and that identity ties back to your company. The agent’s mistakes are your company’s mistakes. In the Visa, BILL and Billtrust pilot, a registered agent identity replaced a shared portal login. A practical step is a register of every agent with payment rights, its operator and its limits, kept like a signatory list. Your AI Agents Need an HR Department makes the same case from inside the company. Someone has to produce the agent’s identity, scope, credentials and audit trail before it goes live.

The essay Stop Conditions Are the Product marks the limit. Know Your Agent tells a merchant who the agent is. It secures the moment the agent starts. It does not write the rule that makes the agent stop, and that rule depends on your business.

Where has it come up?

• Visa, Mastercard, and Ant start on a shared ID check for AI agents
• An AI agent now pays supplier portal invoices without a shared login
• Salesforce will meter every call an outside AI agent makes (registered agents get their own identity)

Which essays cover it?

• Stop Conditions Are the Product
• Your AI Agents Need an HR Department

Which terms are related?

• agentic commerce
• stop condition
• network token

@misc{couch2026whatisknowyouragent,
  author = {Couch, Chris},
  title = {What is Know Your Agent?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Ends at Cash},
  url = {https://chriscouch.ai/what-is/know-your-agent/}
}