“You need three things for agentic commerce to work: an Aadhaar equivalent as a foundational identity layer for AI agents, a UPI equivalent to address how money flows between two agents, and an ONDC equivalent, an interoperable platform for how this will all work,” said Prag Sharma, Director of Emerging Technologies at US-based Citibank, at the India AI Impact Summit (2026), drawing an analogy with India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) stack.
He made these comments during a discussion on “Agentic Commerce: Trust, Tokens and ‘Know Your Agent’ for the AI Economy,” held on 16 February 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. The speakers discussed the digital identity framework for AI agents, data access limits, and how to build trust in AI agentic systems, particularly in the e-commerce sector.
What Makes an AI Agent Trustworthy?
Janet George, Executive Vice President of AI at Mastercard, said she was initially “very nervous” about using AI agents, especially for financial transactions. However, a real-world AI-agentic experience changed her perspective when Fidelity, her financial custodian, asked her to use an AI agent to file her 401(k) retirement plan.
She laid out the following reasons that established trust in the AI agentic commerce system:
- The AI agent asked for consent three times for a single transaction.
- The agent operated within strict limits and “did not go any further” beyond the assigned task.
- It was de-instantiated immediately after completing the assigned task.
- It completed a time-sensitive fund transfer that saved her a trip to the bank.
Recalling this incident later in the discussion, Arvind Jayaprakash, Senior Vice President of Technology at Glance, emphasised the importance of voluntary friction, especially when making high-stakes decisions. “Stop and ask, will the consumer in 1% or 0.1% of the situations be very unhappy saying, ‘No, I did not want that.’ If so, intentionally have friction,” he recommended. He cautioned against being carried away by the ability of AI and AI agents.
How to Build Trust in AI Agentic Commerce?
While George explained why she trusted the AI agent for her financial transaction, Sharma outlined what is required to build a trustworthy AI agent. He proposed a three-part framework that could build trust in AI-driven commerce.
Before laying out these architectural requirements, he noted that AI is moving from chat-based interfaces to proxying humans in the digital world, making strong trust and safety guardrails essential.
“From passwords, we are moving on to machine-grade trust frameworks. You can no longer have a password to log in when you have many agents running on your behalf. The agents need to have their own identity,” he emphasised.
Sharma outlined the following requirements:
- Cryptographically proven identity for AI Agent: “We need to ensure that each agent has a cryptographically proven identity that…
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