Ensuring a Trusted, Interoperable, and Secure Agentic Frontier
The AI Agent Standards Initiative ensures that the next generation of AI—agents capable of autonomous actions—is widely adopted with confidence. By fostering industry-led technical standards and open protocols, CAISI aims to catalyze an ecosystem where agents function securely on behalf of users and interoperate smoothly across the digital landscape while cementing U.S. dominance at the technological frontier.
Strategic Pillars
NIST hosts technical convenings and conducts gap analyses to produce voluntary guidelines to inform industry-led standardization for AI agents. NIST collaborates with the interagency, including NSF, to expand stakeholder engagement in and maintain leadership on AI agents at international standards bodies.
NIST engages with the AI ecosystem to identify and reduce barriers to interoperable agent protocols. NSF invests in the development and security of open-source ecosystems including AI agent protocol ecosystems via its Pathways to Enable Secure Open-Source Ecosystems program.
NIST conducts fundamental research into agent authentication and identity infrastructure to enable secure human-agent and multi-agent interactions. NIST develops state-of-the-art security evaluations to inform protocol development and consumer comparison.
Related Activities and Resources
- Request for Information (RFI) on AI Agent Security: CAISI effort to understand ecosystem perspectives on current threats, mitigations, measures, and other considerations related to agent security.
- Draft Concept Paper, Accelerating the Adoption of Software and AI Agent Identity and Authorization: NCCOE project applying identity standards to enterprise agent use cases.
- Listening Sessions on Barriers to AI Adoption: CAISI will host virtual workshops to identify barriers to AI adoption in the healthcare, finance, and education sectors
Get Involved
| Respond to RFI | Provide input on AI agent security to shape the Initiative | Deadline: March 9 |
|---|---|---|
| Comment on the paper | Share feedback on the Identity and Authorization concept paper | Deadline: April 2 |
| Join listening sessions | Register interest for upcoming sector-specific listening sessions | Deadline: March 20 |
Created February 17, 2026, Updated February 18, 2026