Meta and Sierra, the AI customer-service company co-founded by Bret Taylor, introduced the Personal Agent Protocol, an open standard for how a person’s AI agent signs in to a business and gets tasks done on their behalf. Built on OAuth, the same plumbing behind “Log in with Google,” the protocol lets users grant an agent read-only or write access to their accounts while businesses decide what to expose and can see what agents are doing, according to Sierra’s announcement. Shopify, Stripe, Walmart, Genesys, Instinct and Rocket are on board, and a first version of the spec is due later this month.
The fight underneath is about access. Amazon has blocked Meta’s Muse shopping agent from its site, and Amazon, OpenAI and Anthropic are not part of the coalition, Forkast noted. Meta’s David Singleton compared the goal to email, a shared standard any agent and any business can use, and whether it sticks will help decide if AI agents shop the open web or get stopped at each retailer’s door.