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Meta, Sierra and six other companies are developing the Personal Agent Protocol, an open standard for how personal AI agents connect with businesses. The partners say a first specification and a reference implementation are due by the end of October 2026; the protocol’s final design and adoption remain unsettled.
Meta, Sierra and six other companies are developing an open standard for how personal AI agents interact with businesses, with a first specification planned by the end of October. Called the Personal Agent Protocol, it is intended to set rules for authentication, user permissions and the limits businesses can place on what agents do on their websites, through their APIs or using company agents.
Sierra co-founders Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor announced the work in a blog post on Tuesday, Oct. 6. The other participating companies named in the report are Genesys, Instinct, Rocket, Shopify, Stripe and Walmart, alongside Sierra and Meta. The partners describe the protocol as open for anyone to implement, rather than a system limited to the companies involved in its development.
The planned version 0.1 specification is expected to be published by the end of October along with a reference implementation intended to help developers begin building with it. The partners say the protocol will handle authentication, let consumers decide what access to grant their personal agents, and give businesses a way to define boundaries for agent activity.
Meta said the group is working through practical questions such as how agents can securely convey a user’s identity, how businesses can guide agents toward efficient website use or suitable APIs and skills, and how a personal agent can communicate with a company’s agent on a customer’s behalf. Those are stated aims for the developing standard; the announced timeline concerns the initial specification and implementation, not evidence that businesses have already adopted the protocol.
If adopted, a common protocol could give personal agents a consistent way to reach multiple businesses instead of requiring each company to build a separate connection for every agent. That could reduce friction when agents carry out tasks for users, while preserving a business’s ability to decide which services and information its systems make available.
The proposal also addresses a core trust question: an agent may need to act using a person’s identity or account, but the user and the business need controls over what it can access and do. The partners say the protocol is intended to provide those controls. The specification has not yet been published, however, so its practical safeguards and effectiveness cannot yet be evaluated.
For companies, an open standard could offer an alternative to supporting multiple incompatible integrations as personal agents become more common. For consumers, the potential benefit is a more consistent way to delegate routine tasks. Whether those benefits materialize will depend on the protocol’s technical design, how businesses implement it and whether agent providers support it.
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A Fast-Moving Agent Market
The announcement comes as technology companies introduce personal AI agents intended to take actions or manage tasks for users. PYMNTS reported that Meta’s personal AI agent, Muse, launched on Sept. 8 and reached the top of App Store charts within days, citing an earlier report. It also reported that Instinct, which builds a personal agent for everyday life, was valued at $10 billion after a valuation increase announced Sept. 28. Those developments indicate rising activity around personal agents, but do not establish demand for this particular protocol.
OpenAI announced AI agents called Dots on Sept. 29, describing them as “built to handle everything,” according to the source report. The Personal Agent Protocol is a separate effort focused on the connection between personal agents and businesses, rather than an announcement of a new consumer agent. Meta compared the standard-setting effort to the shared technical rules that allow email systems from different providers to work together.
“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.”
— Sierra co-founders Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor
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Design and Adoption Still Pending
The announcement does not provide the full specification, so details of the authentication process, permission controls and business-defined limits are not yet available. It is also unclear how the protocol will handle disputes, errors, revoked access, sensitive information or different business requirements.
The named partners have not established that the standard will be adopted across the wider industry. The source material does not specify whether other agent providers or businesses have committed to implement it, how governance of the protocol will work, or whether the initial version will change after developer feedback. A planned release date is not confirmation that the protocol will be published on schedule.
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First Specification Due in October
The next stated milestone is publication of version 0.1 and a reference implementation by the end of October 2026. Those materials should give developers a first opportunity to inspect the proposed rules and test how the connection is meant to work.
After publication, key developments to watch will include whether the specification addresses identity, user consent and business boundaries in enough detail, and whether companies outside the founding group begin implementing it. The announcement does not give a later rollout schedule or say when consumers might encounter services using the protocol.
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Key Questions
What is the Personal Agent Protocol?
It is a proposed open standard for how personal AI agents connect and interact with businesses, including authentication, user permissions and limits on what agents can do.
Which companies are developing it?
The companies named are Meta, Sierra, Genesys, Instinct, Rocket, Shopify, Stripe and Walmart.
When will the protocol be available?
The partners say version 0.1 and a reference implementation are scheduled for publication by the end of October 2026. That is a planned release, not confirmation that publication has occurred.
Will businesses and developers be able to use it?
The partners say the protocol will be open for anyone to implement. How widely it is adopted, and what it will require in practice, remain unknown until the specification is published and organizations begin using it.
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