Know Your Agent (KYA) Meets the Market: The Maturing Landscape of Agentic Commerce

When Trulioo and PayOS first introduced Know Your Agent (KYA), it marked an important milestone: the first identity framework designed for the era of agent-led transactions.

Now, just months later, the conversation has advanced. Agentic commerce is no longer a thought experiment – it’s happening in real time. From AI-powered checkout assistants to autonomous travel concierges and B2B workflow agents, ecosystem players are already deploying agents that act, transact and make decisions on behalf of users.

Trulioo Chief Product Officer Zac Cohen highlighted the importance of creating trusted agentic transactions in a recent conversation with PYMNTS. 

“As this new mode of commerce and this new mode of digital interactions start to happen more frequently, and it’s catching fire very quickly, we believe that we have a fundamental place in that world to also bring trust to agentic verifications and agentic transactions,” Cohen said.

In a recent Trulioo-hosted webinar, experts from Trulioo and PayOS explored the challenges of a shifting agentic commerce landscape, and why KYA is essential to maintaining trust and identity at scale.

Identity is the Missing Trust Layer

Agentic commerce is scaling fast, with millions of generative AI users each month. But amidst this growth, identity is still lagging behind.

“There’s still a missing layer of actually identifying the users behind agents, making sure they’re verified and have the proper credentials to act,” said Sumant Gandhi, Trulioo Head of Product for Agentic Identity. “That trust layer is what’s needed to ensure the future of commerce is secure and conducted by verified individuals.”

This agentic trust layer is the next critical evolution of digital identity. Building on the foundations established by Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB), Know Your Agent (KYA) establishes a framework for human-grade trust in AI-led interactions.

Where Agentic Commerce Is Already Taking Off

Across sectors, AI agents are becoming the new interface for commerce. Brands are testing AI storefronts that let users shop through digital agents, while startups are building agents that can handle everything from purchases to account creation.

“What we see at PayOS is this phenomenon of global agentic commerce,” said Jonathan McGowan, PayOS CEO. “It’s happening in every region, with every type of use case you could imagine. That’s because giving an agent a way to pay on someone’s behalf or conduct an action financially really changes the landscape of what you can do.”

McGowan noted that agent use cases now extend well beyond retail, including:

• Workforce agents automating CRM updates and sales workflows.
  
• Account-creation agents setting up loyalty programs and shipping profiles.
  
• Specialized agents managing tasks in travel, healthcare and subscriptions.

As agents replace more manual workflows, KYA becomes the trust backbone that keeps every action trustworthy and secure.

The Next Frontier: Multi-Agent Orchestration

As agentic commerce matures, it’s no longer about a single agent acting on a user’s behalf – it’s about networks of agents working together.

“As agentic commerce expands, we’ll see chains of agents talking to each other,” Gandhi said. “Merchants, payment companies and platforms will all have their own shopping or checkout agents.”

Gandhi underscored that within agent-to-agent transactions, each handoff depends on a trust handshake, confirming that every agent is verified, authorized and operating within its mandate. Amidst this emerging web of agentic communication, KYA’s chain of trust must evolve in step with the networks powering the next generation of autonomous commerce.

Toward a New Standard of Digital Trust

Agentic commerce is reshaping how trust is built online. What began as a concept is becoming the foundation for identity in the AI economy. As agents increasingly handle how people shop, pay and interact, KYA ensures every action is traceable to a verified human and a verifiable mandate.

With Trulioo and PayOS leading the way, the groundwork for secure agentic commerce is already in place, one trusted transaction at a time.