‘Know Your Agent’ becomes essential as autonomous payments open new fraud frontiers

Artificial intelligence is rapidly gaining financial autonomy, with software agents now able to search, select and pay for goods on behalf of humans — a shift first emerging in e-commerce and digital purchasing. While consumers can use these agents for speed and convenience, criminals are learning to do the same, turning autonomous payments into a potential new entry point for fraud.

From assistants to financial actors

AI agents are evolving from passive tools into active participants in commerce. Instead of merely recommending products, they can now execute transactions, manage subscriptions and optimise spending across platforms. This transition marks a fundamental change: machines are no longer just advising financial decisions — they are making them.

Early deployments focus on routine purchases such as travel bookings, groceries and digital services. But as these systems gain broader permissions and access to wallets or cards, they also become attractive targets for exploitation.

Fraudsters do not need to compromise a human directly if they can manipulate or impersonate an agent.

A new attack surface for criminals

Autonomous agents operate at machine speed and scale. That efficiency, while valuable to consumers, also lowers the barrier for abuse. Malicious actors can deploy their own agents to probe payment systems, test transaction limits or automate small-value purchases designed to evade detection.

More concerning is the risk of compromised agents acting as trusted intermediaries. If an attacker gains control over an AI agent — or feeds it poisoned data — fraudulent transactions can appear legitimate, because they originate from an authorised digital identity rather than a human user.

Traditional fraud controls, built around behavioural analysis of people, struggle in this environment. Agents do not hesitate, second-guess or follow human spending patterns. They simply execute instructions.

Why ‘Know Your Agent’ matters

Just as financial institutions developed “Know Your Customer” frameworks, a parallel concept is now emerging: Know Your Agent.

This means verifying not only the end user, but also the software entity acting on their behalf. Businesses are beginning to explore agent identity frameworks that assign cryptographic credentials, permissions and spending limits to each autonomous system.

Key principles include:

• Clear attribution of every transaction to a specific agent and owner
• Granular permissioning, restricting what an agent can buy and where
• Continuous monitoring of agent behaviour for anomalies
• Immutable audit trails showing how decisions were made

Without these controls, companies risk creating invisible actors inside their payment ecosystems.

Balancing automation with accountability

There is no doubt that agentic commerce will accelerate digital consumption. For enterprises, it promises lower friction, higher conversion and personalised purchasing at scale. For consumers, it offers convenience and time savings.

But autonomy without accountability is dangerous.

Security specialists warn that governance must be embedded at the infrastructure level, not bolted on later. That includes segregating high-risk payment flows, limiting agent access to sensitive credentials, and enforcing real-time validation before funds move.

Some organisations are already isolating AI-driven transactions into tightly controlled environments, ensuring that automated systems cannot freely interact with core financial rails.

The next phase of digital trust

As AI agents become routine financial actors, trust frameworks must evolve accordingly. The question is no longer only who is paying — but what is paying.

Autonomous commerce is arriving faster than regulation can keep up. In that gap, responsibility falls to platforms, merchants and payment providers to build safeguards that recognise agents as distinct participants in the economy.

Know Your Agent may soon be as fundamental as knowing your customer — because when machines can spend money, they also inherit the power to misuse it.

Newshub Editorial in Europe – 25 February 2026