Skyfire has announced the launch of Skyfire Agent Checkout, a system designed to enable autonomous payments and identity verification for AI agents. Built upon the open KYAPay protocol, this release addresses a gap in the digital economy by allowing AI agents to participate as authenticated, paying consumers.
AI agents, which now account for over half of all online traffic and play a significant role in code and application development, have historically been unable to autonomously sign up for accounts, log in, or pay for services. This limitation has required human intervention for credential handling, hindering agents from accessing premium content and services directly. Consequently, businesses have often blocked agent traffic or treated it as a cost, rather than recognizing a new market segment.
Skyfire Agent Checkout aims to integrate agents into digital commerce by providing tools for authentication, trustworthiness, account creation, and payments. The system leverages the Know-Your-Agent (KYA) identity framework, which uses a standardized signed JSON Web Token (JWT) to include verified information about the agent owner, facilitating account creation. For payments, it utilizes a programmable payment feature, also based on a signed JWT, authorizing spending via USDC or tokenized credit/debit cards.
The platform supports self-funded wallets, enabling both agents and enterprises to add funds via credit/debit cards, ACH, or USDC for autonomous spending across digital services. It integrates with protocols such as Model Context Protocol (MCP) to facilitate the exchange of payments and identity claims via signed JWTs. Compatibility with OAuth2/OIDC is maintained, with KYAPay complementing existing authentication flows by exchanging KYA tokens for access tokens. The protocol emphasizes open standards, offering a publicly available specification and an open-source reference implementation.
Skyfire Agent Checkout also enables agentic microtransactions, supporting instant on-chain or off-chain payments between agents, businesses, and agents, for all transaction amounts, including those below $5.
Amir Sarhangi, CEO and Co-founder of Skyfire, stated, “The protocol delivers an open standard solution that doesn’t force you into new auth stacks or walled gardens. We’re building the connective tissue for the agent economy that benefits agents, businesses, and developers equally. Our platform, Agent Checkout, isn’t just a vision for agent-native commerce; we’ve delivered the ecosystem, the protocol, and the partnerships to make it the default operating layer for autonomous agents.”
Skyfire provides a directory for businesses to list and price their offerings directly to agents, making services discoverable and purchasable through various digital interfaces, including websites, direct APIs, or MCP servers. Integration is supported via REST APIs and SDKs for Node, Python, and Go.
Strategic partnerships underpin the rollout of Agent Checkout. Collaborations include APIFY, which will enable verified agents to call and pay their web Actors for scraping and automation; BuildShip, allowing developers to monetize agents and tools; CarbonArc, for agentic purchase of insights; Cequence Security, providing secure policy-driven access for verified AI agents; DataDome, classifying Skyfire-enabled agent traffic as “Trusted/Paying Agent”; Forter.com, extending fraud prevention to AI agents; and Ory (Hydra + Kratos), enabling zero-code onboarding for Ory customers to accept verified agents. Cyndy Lobb, Chief Product Officer at Forter, commented, “As the Agent economy emerges, new standards are needed to allow consumers, agents, and merchants to securely and seamlessly work together. Forter is trusted to protect consumers and merchants worldwide from fraud and, by partnering with Skyfire, our identity intelligence and real-time fraud prevention is extended into the world of AI Agents.”
Additional launch partners include Agentcies.co, Bazaars App, Emergence AI, Brickroad (Emet Research), Fetch.ai, Hayride, Parsym, Sophtron, The Swarm, and AGNTCY.
Skyfire, which focuses on providing payment and identity solutions for the AI agent economy, is supported by investors including Evolution, DCVC, a16z CSX, Coinbase Ventures, Neuberger Berman, and Brevan Howard Digital.
