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AI Agent Standards Initiative

Ensuring a Trusted, Interoperable, and Secure Agentic Frontier

The AI Agent Standards Initiative ensures that the next generation of AI—agents capable of autonomous actions—is widely adopted with confidence. By fostering industry-led technical standards and open protocols, CAISI aims to catalyze an ecosystem where agents function securely on behalf of users and interoperate smoothly across the digital landscape while cementing U.S. dominance at the technological frontier.

Strategic Pillars

NIST hosts technical convenings and conducts gap analyses to produce voluntary guidelines to inform industry-led standardization for AI agents. NIST collaborates with the interagency, including NSF, to expand stakeholder engagement in and maintain leadership on AI agents at international standards bodies.

NIST engages with the AI ecosystem to identify and reduce barriers to interoperable agent protocols. NSF resources open source development and maintenance of agent protocols via its Pathways to Enable Open Source Ecosystems program.

NIST conducts fundamental research into agent authentication and identity infrastructure to enable secure human-agent and multi-agent interactions. NIST develops state-of-the-art security evaluations to inform protocol development and consumer comparison.

Related Activities and Resources


Get Involved

Respond to RFIProvide input on AI agent security to shape the InitiativeDeadline: March 9
Comment on the paperShare feedback on the Identity and Authorization concept paperDeadline: April 2
Join listening sessionsRegister interest for upcoming sector-specific listening sessionsDeadline: March 20
Created February 17, 2026
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