Meta and Sierra create "passports" for AI Agents, with Walmart, Shopify, and others participating in the development.

动察 Beating AI News: Customer service agent company Sierra has partnered with Meta to launch the Personal Agent Protocol (PAP), with companies including Walmart, Shopify, Stripe, Genesys, and Instinct participating in its development. PAP is designed for personal AI agents, enabling enterprises to confirm an agent's identity, which user it represents, and what the user has authorized it to do.

Many personal agents today still rely on simulating human operations on web pages. They open websites, click buttons, and fill out forms, and are easily blocked by CAPTCHAs and anti-bot systems. Amazon previously banned Meta Muse from accessing its shopping site. Even Walmart, a partner of Muse, displays human verification prompts that block agents.

PAP aims to standardize this identity and authorization relationship directly. When a user asks an agent to check an order, they can grant read-only permission; changing an order or placing one requires separate authorization. Enterprises can also specify which operations an agent may perform and whether it connects via web pages, APIs, or the enterprise's own agent.

MCP mainly addresses how agents call external tools and data, while PAP handles agent identity, user authorization, and enterprise permissions. PAP is still in preview, and the first v0.1 specification is planned for release later this month.

On the same day, Sierra's competitor Decagon also open-sourced a similar PACT protocol and announced it was joining the PAP working group. PACT likewise handles agent identity and user authorization, using A2A to connect personal agents with enterprise agents, and then completing user authorization through OAuth.