KUALA LUMPUR: Zetrix AI Bhd has partnered with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) to launch a Know Your Agent service.
It aims to verify the identities and authority of artificial intelligence (AI) agents as they increasingly perform tasks independently.
The partnership was announced simultaneously at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen and the ICT Development Forum 2026 in Dubai today.
The service allows businesses, governments and digital service providers to establish who an AI agent represents, what it is authorised to do and whether its actions fall within approved limits.
The initiative also includes a planned cross-border pilot involving organisations in the Middle East, Africa, China and Asean to test how AI agent identities and permissions can be recognised across different jurisdictions.
Zetrix AI group managing director TS Wong said greater accountability was needed as AI agents took on more responsibilities, including interacting with businesses, making decisions and executing transactions.
“Every AI agent can be identified, every permission can be verified and every action can be traced to an accountable owner,” he said.
The service extends conventional digital identity verification to AI agents by linking each agent to an authenticated individual or organisation.
Owners can set specific permissions covering the services an agent can access, the information it can use, the parties it can transact with and its spending limits.
For instance, a business could authorise an AI agent to make payments to approved suppliers within a set limit, while requiring human approval for transactions above that threshold.
The service also allows permissions to be revoked and is designed to ensure that an AI agent delegating tasks to another agent cannot grant authority beyond the permissions originally assigned to it.
Zetrix AI and CAICT said the cross-border pilot will assess identity verification, permission enforcement, revocation mechanisms, privacy safeguards and accountability records in practical settings.
Potential applications include cross-border trade, digital payments, government services and interactions between autonomous AI agents.
The findings will be submitted to the International Telecommunication Union, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and other standards bodies to support discussions on global AI identity and accountability standards.
CAICT Astron network international department head Xiaoyu You said the collaboration was expected to support the development of a trusted cross-border network for interoperable agentic AI.