Experian launches Agent Trust for AI-led commerce

Experian has launched Agent Trust, a framework to verify links between consumers and AI agents in digital transactions. The system is aimed at AI-driven commerce.

It introduces what Experian calls a “Know Your Agent” framework, designed to tie an agent's actions to a verified consumer identity and record transaction risk in real time. The framework includes Human-to-Agent Binding, an Agent Trust Token and an Agent Registry that tracks behaviour and other risk signals.

The move comes as businesses grapple with a basic problem in autonomous commerce: how to verify an instruction when software, rather than a person, initiates a purchase. Without a verified link between a human and an AI agent, merchants and payment providers face greater risks of fraud, misrepresentation and unauthorised transactions, according to Experian.

Under the framework, a consumer can direct an AI agent to search for a product, compare options and prepare a purchase for approval. Once the consumer authorises the transaction, the system is intended to confirm that the agent is acting for a verified individual and from a recognised device.

Experian is developing the framework with partners including Visa, Cloudflare and Skyfire. The arrangement combines identity checks, payment authentication, network enforcement and interoperability tools for agent-based transactions.

Partner roles

Experian's identity systems are designed to sit alongside Visa Intelligent Commerce and Trusted Agent Protocol in a layered structure for AI-led payments. In that structure, Visa helps merchants identify and verify AI agents through its network and supports secure payments through tokenisation.

Cloudflare enforces the trust layer at the network edge. Skyfire provides a standardised method for packaging and exchanging agent-related information across platforms, with the aim of making different identity and payment systems work together.

Kathleen Peters, chief innovation officer at Experian, said trust would determine whether this type of commerce becomes widely adopted. “Agentic commerce will not scale without trust,” Peters said. “What's required is verifying the agent, the human behind it, and their intent to purchase. This is a natural extension of Experian's verification role in the ecosystem. We already help define trust in financial transactions; now we're bringing that same leadership to agentic commerce.”

The proposition builds on Experian's existing identity verification and fraud prevention business. Its products help clients avoid an estimated USD $15-19 billion in fraud losses each year, according to the company.

Commerce shift

The announcement reflects a wider effort across the payments and internet sectors to define standards for AI agents that can browse, recommend and buy goods on behalf of users. For merchants, the challenge is not only whether an agent has been authorised to act, but also whether the person behind it is genuine and whether the transaction fits established fraud controls.

Visa described the issue as an extension of the trust model that has underpinned card payments for decades. “Visa has spent decades earning trust across global commerce, which matters even more as AI becomes part of how transactions happen,” said Rubail Birwadker, SVP, Head of Growth Products and Partnerships at Visa. “As the ecosystem evolves and approaches like Experian's human-to-agent identity binding capabilities emerge, Visa Intelligent Commerce and Trusted Agent Protocol are designed to provide the secure foundation for agentic commerce experiences at global scale.”

Cloudflare pointed to the infrastructure demands created by agent-led transactions as AI systems interact directly with digital services and merchant sites. “The rise of AI agents represents one of the most significant shifts in the history of digital commerce, but it can only succeed if the underlying infrastructure is rooted in trust,” said Stephanie Cohen, chief strategy officer at Cloudflare. “Cloudflare is the best place to build and secure agents. By combining our network footprint with Experian's identity expertise, we're giving any business the tools to participate in agentic commerce with confidence.”

Skyfire focused on the need for merchants and agents to exchange information consistently. “Agentic commerce only works if merchants can confidently understand who they are transacting with, and if agents can pay as reliably as people do,” said Amir Sarhangi, CEO and co-founder of Skyfire. “Through our collaboration with Experian's Agent Trust ecosystem and our work on the Know Your Agent (KYAPay) protocol, we're helping enable a seamless, interoperable trust layer that brings together identity and payments to unlock the full potential of autonomous transactions.”

Experian said Agent Trust is platform-agnostic and intended to work with existing payment systems and frameworks. At its centre is a persistent connection between an individual, that person's devices and the AI agents acting on their behalf, supported by an auditable record of the agent's behaviour over time.

Experian operates in 33 countries and employs 25,200 people.