Meta, Walmart, and Stripe are publishing a new open standard called the “personal agent protocol” to dictate how artificial intelligence agents interact with businesses, CNBC reported. The initiative, led by Sierra co-founder and OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor, arrives a month after Meta launched its viral personal agent, Muse, which quickly climbed to the top of Apple’s App Store.
Companies Push for Open Standards as Personal Agents Surge
A group of major companies is moving to simplify the integration of personal AI agents into the business world. The newly published “personal agent protocol” sets technical rules for how autonomous software can communicate with corporate systems. Enterprise AI startup Sierra is participating in the coalition alongside Meta, Walmart, and Stripe.
Bret Taylor, co-founder of Sierra and chairman of OpenAI, told CNBC that the current market lacks order. “Companies will know when it’s a personal agent versus an actual person,” Taylor said. “For a lot of companies there’s a risk: you don’t want just a random bot that isn’t acting on behalf of a person to have access to this service. It is kind of chaos until such a standard exists.”
Meta’s Muse Faces Platform Blocks Amid Rapid User Growth
Meta’s Muse has dominated consumer adoption since its early September debut, maintaining a position ahead of ChatGPT at the top of Apple’s App Store. David Singleton, vice president of engineering and consumer products at Meta Superintelligence Labs and former technology chief at Stripe, told CNBC that Muse has already amassed millions of users in the U.S. and continues to grow rapidly. Users routinely employ the tool to sign kids up for classes, buy gifts, and schedule medical appointments, according to Singleton.
That rapid consumer adoption has triggered friction with other tech platforms. Amazon has blocked Meta’s agents over website scraping concerns. Amazon also blocked Perplexity’s AI agent and filed a November lawsuit alleging that Perplexity concealed its AI agents to bypass scraping restrictions. Perplexity characterized the lawsuit as a bully tactic.
Authentication and Security Rails for Future AI Interactions
The newly introduced protocol aims to resolve authentication and authorization hurdles. Taylor compared the framework to the established practice of logging into third-party websites with Google or Facebook credentials—a technology he helped develop while serving as Facebook’s tech chief. The standard enables businesses to verify whether they are interacting with an authenticated bot and provides visibility into agent actions.
David Singleton emphasized the security requirements involved when users share sensitive financial data. “We’re defining rails that we hope personal agents and business agents can run over for the future,” Singleton said, drawing a parallel to email. “If you think about email, it works great because it is a standard that everyone can use to talk to each other, and we think this is going to be quite similar.”
Taylor Expects Major AI Competitors to Join Protocol
While OpenAI and Anthropic have not joined the protocol initiative at launch, Taylor stated he expects major AI competitors to participate eventually. He indicated he would be “really disappointed” if competing firms ultimately bypass the standard. “The whole point of this is to be an open standard,” Taylor said.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Personal Agent Protocol
What companies are currently backing the personal agent protocol?
Meta, Walmart, Stripe, and enterprise AI startup Sierra are among the companies publishing the new open standard, according to CNBC reporting.
How many users does Meta’s Muse currently have?
Meta Superintelligence Labs executive David Singleton told CNBC that Muse has millions of users in the United States and is growing rapidly.
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