Cloudflare said on the 6th that it unveiled Cloudflare Wallet and Cloudflare Pay to help artificial intelligence (AI) agents securely authenticate identity and make online payments.
Recently, cases have increased in which AI agents autonomously carry out a range of tasks such as navigating websites, calling APIs, and purchasing products, but critics have noted that today's internet is designed around people, making it hard for corporations to reliably verify who is making a request. Existing bot-detection technology is focused on identifying search crawlers, so it has limits in distinguishing AI agents that act on behalf of real individuals or corporations.
Through this service, Cloudflare assigns verifiable identities to AI agents and enables payments within the parameters users set. Corporations can confirm on whose behalf the requesting AI agent is acting, improving trustworthiness.
Each Cloudflare account is assigned a unique web address–based ID, and users can consolidation their identity with a specific AI agent. Through this, corporations providing services can verify the party that approved the request.
Payment features are also provided. The Account Wallet, which serves as a central wallet, receives, holds, and manages stablecoins, and each AI agent is assigned a Virtual Wallet. Users can set per–AI agent expenditure limits, approved merchants, maximum payment amounts, and more, allowing them to control AI so it cannot pay beyond the allowed range.
Cloudflare is currently taking advance registrations for Cloudflare Wallet handles, its unique identifiers. The full feature set, including deposits and withdrawals and issuance of Virtual Wallets, will roll out sequentially over the coming months.
Matthew Prince, Cloudflare chief executive officer (CEO), said, "The internet is rapidly shifting from an environment navigated directly by people to one where AI agents carry out transactions, and the supporting infrastructure must evolve with it," adding, "Cloudflare provides identities that let you confirm on whose behalf AI agents act, securing trust and accountability and enabling real transactions."