Know Your Customer (KYC) can establish who authorized a task; it cannot, by itself, establish that a software agent’s later actions still fit the person’s instructions. Karina Portugal’s case for “Know Your Agent” is to make an agent’s identity, delegated authority, and actions visible to the institutions handling them—without requiring a person to approve every step.
Why KYC is not enough for an AI agent
Traditional identity checks answer a question about a person: who is the customer, and can they access a service? An agent introduces a second question: does this particular action still fall within what the customer authorized?
In an October 6, 2026 article, HackRead reports Portugal’s example of an agent buying a ticket. Permission to purchase does not settle whether a later purchase still meets the customer’s parameters. The important distinction is between authenticating the person who delegated a task and checking the agent’s actions as it carries out that task.
Portugal’s concern is not that every agent is malicious. It is that a system may be unable to distinguish ordinary customer activity, an authorized agent acting for that customer, and an attacking bot. In a September 29, 2026 interview with The AI Journal, she describes this as a problem of attribution and delegated authority: institutions should be able to determine who an agent acted for, what limits applied, and what happened.
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What “Know Your Agent” would require
Portugal’s proposal is a discipline for making delegation legible, not a universal standard or a claim that one existing product already solves the problem. Its practical aim is to connect an agent’s actions to an identifiable requester and a bounded task.
Define authority around the task
Permission should specify what the agent may do for the task, rather than treating a standing credential as open-ended authority for future actions. For a ticket purchase, that means assessing the purchase against the customer’s approved parameters, not merely noting that the agent has access to a purchasing account.
Limit credential lifetimes
The sources recommend short-lived credentials, but do not specify a universal duration. The point is to avoid letting a credential outlive the authority it represents or become a blanket pass for unrelated future actions.
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Check permission when consequential actions occur
A credential can be valid while a particular action is out of scope. Portugal therefore argues for checking authorization during execution, not only when access is first granted. The decision should consider whether the current request fits the task and its limits.
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Evaluate behavior against the approved goal
Instead of relying only on patterns associated with human users, an institution would assess whether the agent’s current action fits the authorized task and context. The interview does not prescribe a particular technical method for making that assessment.
Keep records that connect delegation to action
Useful records should link the requester, approved task and limits, credential, and action. That connection can help an institution reconstruct what was authorized if a transaction is disputed. Ordinary activity logs may show that an event occurred; Portugal’s recommendation is to preserve enough context to explain why the agent was permitted to do it.
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How to make verification work without constant prompts
Continuous verification does not have to mean asking the customer to confirm every step. Portugal warns that repeated intervention can add friction; her stated design aim is to make the boundaries machine-checkable so routine actions within scope can proceed while the system evaluates them.
Her approach leaves room for additional review when an action falls outside the approved limits or presents a concern. The interview does not specify a universal escalation rule or a measured balance between security and convenience. In Portugal’s words, “The design constraint is that verification has to be strong and almost entirely invisible.” That is her design principle, not a demonstrated outcome for every deployment.
Questions to use when evaluating an agent system
The following checklist translates Portugal’s recommendations into practical questions for an enterprise. It is an editorial framework, not a formal certification or a comparison of named products.
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- Authority scope: Is access standing, or is permission tied to a particular task and its limits?
- Credential lifetime: Can credentials expire, and does their lifetime reflect the authority they carry?
- Timing of checks: Does the system evaluate authorization only at login or deployment, or again when consequential actions occur?
- Evidence: Can an investigator connect the human requester, approved task, credential, and action?
- Risk classification: Can the system distinguish a customer, an authorized agent, and a malicious bot rather than treating activity as simply legitimate or fraudulent?
- Customer friction: Can routine in-scope actions proceed under machine-checkable limits, with a path to review when those limits are exceeded?
The interview does not identify a universal implementation, credential lifetime, or comparative evidence showing that one approach performs better than another. These questions help expose whether a deployment makes delegated authority understandable and reviewable.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the examples and statistics do—and do not—show
HackRead discusses access to context and tools, the Model Context Protocol, and Stripe’s agent-payment system as examples in the broader conversation. That reporting does not independently establish the specifications or current availability of those implementations, or show that they implement Portugal’s recommendations.
HackRead also reports a Gartner projection that 40 percent of enterprise applications would include task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, compared with less than 5 percent in 2025. This is a projection as reported in 2026, not a confirmed end-of-year outcome. The same article attributes a 1,210 percent increase in AI-driven or “non-live” fraud during 2025 to Pindrop internal data. That figure is attributed reporting, not an independently verified industry-wide fraud rate.
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Portugal is quoted in HackRead as saying, “A compromised agent keeps its legitimate credentials and session tokens,” meaning that downstream systems may see an action that appears authorized. This is her warning about a possible failure mode, not evidence that every compromised agent behaves this way. HackRead also mentions NIST’s voluntary AI Risk Management Framework in connection with autonomy and lifecycle risk; that mention should not be read as NIST endorsing Portugal’s “Know Your Agent” formulation.
What Portugal’s proposal does not establish
The recommendations describe controls and questions for identity governance; they do not amount to a formal, universally adopted standard. The sources provide no measured evidence that the proposed controls prevent agent misuse, no prescribed technical architecture, and no universally applicable credential duration.
In The AI Journal interview, Portugal says, “The safest position is not refusal, it is making agent activity legible.” That captures her argument: institutions need a way to understand and govern authorized delegation, rather than treating all non-human activity as either ordinary customer behavior or an attack. It remains a recommendation attributed to Portugal, not proof that any particular vendor or deployment has achieved it.
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