Introducing Personal Agent Protocol
Personal AI agents are taking the world by storm. People are using them to do everything from scheduling appointments to booking flights and shopping for car insurance. It’s extraordinary how fast AI is changing consumer behavior and how many of us are having those incredible “wait, it just did that” moments with our personal agents. Unsurprisingly companies are asking how they can best respect their consumers’ choices while also protecting their privacy and security.
So today we’re excited to announce Personal Agent Protocol — an open standard Meta and Sierra are developing along with industry partners at Genesys, Instinct, Rocket, Shopify, Stripe, and Walmart that defines how personal agents interact with businesses. We’re designing it to handle authentication, empower consumers and give companies visibility into what personal agents do through their websites, APIs or company agents. It’s open for anyone to implement.
The problem to be solved
Today most personal agents use websites and apps the way people do — loading pages and clicking through forms. When that can’t get the job done, they may call the company’s support line or open its web chat. This can take a long time, and the agent might fail to complete the task. But a direct connection could get the same task done securely in seconds.
To be adopted at scale, that connection has to work for all parties. Everyone wants security, but they have different needs, too:
- Consumers want speed, dependability, and trust — for the job to be done right the first time, by a personal agent they can count on to act in their best interests.
- Brands want visibility and control — to know when a personal agent is acting for a customer and to decide for themselves what it can do.
- Companies building personal agents want efficiency and access — a direct, consistent way to work with participating companies.
How it works
The principle behind the Personal Agent Protocol we’re building is that consumers decide what access to give their personal agents, and companies set parameters for what those agents can do. It enables companies to work with personal agents in the way that is best for their customers: through their existing websites and APIs, or through an agent of their own.
Personal Agent Protocol starts on the website, where a personal agent can discover what the company offers and how to reach it. The personal agent then begins a session on its user’s behalf. It can start as a guest, which may be enough to check product availability or ask about a returns policy. When a task requires access to a customer’s account, they can sign in on the company’s page or use credentials they have already set up with their personal agent. The customer is always in control, deciding whether the agent has read-only or write access.
The session is built on OAuth, an established standard for authorizing access. It carries across channels, so a question asked before sign-in and an order change made afterward are part of the same visit. From there, the personal agent can get the job done using whichever routes the company believes will offer the best customer experience:
- Its website: navigating the company’s regular web pages.
- Its APIs: connecting through interfaces built on standards such as MCP and OpenAPI.
- Its agent: working through tasks that need conversation, such as a warranty claim.
The company decides what it makes available, the personal agent gets a consistent way to connect, and the customer gets a faster way to get things done.
What comes next
We want to develop this protocol with the companies and personal agent builders using it and are excited that Instinct will also be joining the effort. We welcome all partners and plan to publish the v0.1 specification later this month, host design workshops with interested parties, and publish a reference implementation to help developers get started.
More detailed permissions could let customers and companies set limits on specific actions. Push notifications could let a company tell a personal agent the moment a flight is delayed or an order ships. Payments extensions could let a personal agent complete a purchase without sharing credit card information.
As personal agents take on more of our everyday tasks, companies need clear, secure ways to work with them while continuing to deliver a trusted experience. Personal Agent Protocol gives them that foundation — so the company and the personal agent can get the job done for the customer they share.
“Personal AI is creating a new front door to the enterprise. Brands need a trusted way to know who an AI agent represents, what it’s authorized to do, its intent, and how to work with it securely. Personal Agent Protocol is an important step toward creating the shared foundation this new era of customer experience will require.”
“The next era of AI is about persistent agents taking action. Rocket and Redfin are building for that world now. Our agentic technology, developed with Sierra, allows a Muse agent to move across our platform, from finding a home, to securing financing and beyond, all in real time. Nobody else has the data, technology and homeownership ecosystem to make that possible.”
“As personal agents become part of everyday life, merchants have a new frontier for excellent customer service. From answering product questions to supporting purchases, returns, and exchanges, the ambition is to turn a buyer’s intent into an outcome that delights them. Personal Agent Protocol helps establish how agents and merchants can work together to make that happen.”
“A customer relationship doesn’t start or end at checkout. When customers send an agent, they expect the same service they’d get themselves. We’re contributing to the Personal Agent Protocol to give businesses a standard way to recognize their customers’ agents, efficiently interact with them, and shape their customer relationships.”
