As artificially intelligent agents increasingly transact, shop and act autonomously online (a market set to reach $3 trillion to $5 trillion by 2030), a key question comes into focus: how to verify whether a real person is behind the activity.
Sam Altman-backed identity project World (formerly WorldCoin) says it has a solution.
On Tuesday, the company launched AgentKit, a developer toolkit that allows artificial intelligence agents using its World ID system to carry cryptographic proof that they are backed by a unique human. The product works with x402, a protocol developed by Coinbase and Cloudflare that enables “agent payments” by embedding stablecoin micropayments into the internet’s communications layer so that AI agents and software can pay each other without human intervention.
“Payments are the ‘how’ of agency commerce, while identity is the ‘who,'” said Erik Reppel, director of developer platform engineering at Coinbase and founder of x402. “This is a big step towards a network where agents are treated not just as automated traffic but as legitimate economic actors.”
The move comes amid rapid development of artificial intelligence agents that can handle time-consuming and frustrating tasks from booking to finding the best deals on e-commerce marketplaces. World said some estimates suggest that agency commerce could reach $3 trillion to $5 trillion by 2030, with agents accounting for as much as 25% of U.S. e-commerce.
Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong said he believes “soon” the number of artificial intelligence agents will exceed the number of humans conducting transactions. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao went a step further, predicting that agents will be paid a million times more than humans, “and they will be using cryptocurrencies.”
missing piece
However, as the proxy commerce market expands, its widespread use creates a problem that payments alone cannot solve: identity.
“One person can manage thousands of agents, all for a small fee,” said DC Builder, a research engineer at World Foundation. “Humans have proven to bridge that gap.”
A World spokesperson explained that AgentKit solves this problem by linking multiple agents to a single verified person, which allows the platform to impose restrictions at the identity level.
“AgentKit allows developers to link multiple agents to the same verified person,” the spokesperson said. “This means a platform can allow someone to run multiple agents while still enforcing restrictions based on the underlying person.”
The spokesperson added that this could enable the service to limit usage, such as a free trial or a fixed number of bookings per person per day, regardless of how many agents are deployed.
Another problem with proxy commerce is that most websites view automated traffic as suspicious or even block bots entirely. This approach, aimed at deterring abuse, is increasingly at odds with a world in which legitimate software agents increasingly act on behalf of users.
AgentKit allows users to delegate their World ID (privacy-preserving proof that they are the only human being) to an AI agent acting on their behalf. World does not position itself as a replacement for other identity systems, but rather as a base layer.
“It’s not necessarily an either/or choice,” a World spokesperson told CoinDesk. “World ID is intended to be a human-layer proof that developers can use alone or in conjunction with other identity systems.”
The system uses zero-knowledge proofs so the platform can verify that agents represent real people without collecting or storing personal data, which Design World claims is necessary to scale identity in AI-driven networks.
Beyond Orb Verification
AgentKit, currently in beta, relies on Orb-based biometric authentication, the most controversial component in the world.
But the company said it plans to expand the system to include more credentials. These include NFC-enabled passports and IDs provided through “World ID Credentials”, allowing users to prove their attributes without revealing personal information.
“In addition to the beta version, we plan to expand AgentKit with the next generation World ID protocol,” the spokesperson said.
As of this writing, the number of real-time human-verified meter readings worldwide stands at 17,912,203, making its network one of the largest identity proof networks in the world. It’s also a clear indication of their broader ambition: to become the identity layer of an internet that’s made up not just of humans, but of artificial intelligence agents acting on their behalf.
Read more: Visa is ready for AI agents. The same goes for Coinbase. They are building a very different internet