The Pulse
Meta and Sierra Set Out an Open Protocol for Personal AI Agents
Meta and Sierra announced an open protocol for personal AI agents to connect with businesses through websites, APIs or company-built agents. The partners plan to publish a first specification later in October, with customer-controlled permi
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
“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.”
Tony Bates, Chairman & CEO, Genesys
Meta and Sierra announced the Personal Agent Protocol on October 6, proposing an open standard for personal AI agents to interact with businesses. Genesys, Instinct, Rocket, Shopify, Stripe and Walmart are also involved. The companies say the protocol will give customers control over agent access while letting businesses set boundaries and see how agents use their services.
The protocol starts on company websites
The proposed flow begins when an agent visits a company’s website to discover what it offers and how to make contact. It can start as a guest, which may suffice for questions about product availability or returns. If a task requires account access, the customer signs in on the company’s page or uses credentials already configured with the agent.
Customers decide whether an agent gets read-only or write access. A session can continue across channels, so an initial question before sign-in and a later account change remain part of the same visit. Companies choose how agents complete tasks: through ordinary web pages, APIs built on standards such as MCP and OpenAPI, or the company’s own conversational agent.
OAuth handles authorization; companies set the limits
The design uses OAuth, a standard for authorizing access. Sierra says the approach is meant to replace some of the workarounds agents use today, such as navigating pages and filling forms like a person, or turning to customer support when those steps fail. The announcement presents direct connections as a way to complete tasks more quickly, but does not report deployment results or measured time savings.
That division of control is central to the proposal: customers grant access, while businesses decide which actions and routes are available. A guest agent could check a returns policy; a signed-in agent with write access could make an account change. The announcement describes those as intended uses, not as features already available across participating businesses.
Partners span retail, payments and customer service
The partner list brings together companies that would encounter personal agents in different parts of a customer interaction. Shopify’s Mani Fazeli said the protocol could help merchants handle product questions, purchases, returns and exchanges. Stripe’s Kevin Miller said businesses need a consistent way to recognize and interact with customer agents.
Rocket Companies’ chief technology officer, Shawn Malhotra, described work with Sierra on an agent that can move across Rocket and Redfin’s platform, from finding a home to securing financing. That example points to the kind of multi-step service the protocol is intended to support, although Sierra’s announcement does not describe it as a completed implementation of the standard.
The first specification is still ahead
Sierra plans to publish a v0.1 specification later in October, hold design workshops and release a reference implementation for developers. The protocol is open for anyone to implement, but the announcement does not yet supply that specification or outline a completed certification or adoption process.
Sierra also floated possible extensions: more specific limits on individual actions, notifications about events such as delayed flights or shipped orders, and payment flows that would not require sharing a credit-card number with an agent. Those ideas are described as future possibilities. For now, the concrete proposal is a common authorization and connection model that leaves businesses in control of the services they expose.