Ant Group Launches APASS Trust Infrastructure for Agent Commerce
Ant Group launched APASS, a KYA-based trust infrastructure for agent commerce, at the 2026 Inclusion·Bund Conference. It verifies agent identity, authorization, intent and behavior as AI agents enter payments and business transactions.
APASS uses trusted agent identity products and agent risk-control services to build two trust chains, one for identity and one for behavior. It addresses four questions: who an agent is, whom it represents, what it is allowed to do and whether its behavior is trustworthy. The capabilities include identity registration, continuous verification, intent security and trusted evidence.
The launch comes as AI agents move from tools to actors in the business world. They can search for products, book tickets, shop and complete payments on behalf of users, and can also conduct procurement, marketing, customer service and business collaboration for enterprises. Gartner predicts that by 2028, 90% of B2B procurement will be completed with AI agents as intermediaries, driving more than $15 trillion in B2B spending through AI agent transaction platforms.
Traditional internet trust systems were built around people, accounts and platforms, using real-name authentication, account systems and risk controls to confirm transaction parties. Agents are neither people in the traditional sense nor merely passive software that executes instructions, because they can perceive, decide, call tools and act autonomously. When they enter real commerce, the question is not only whether they can act but whether they can be trusted to act.
"Agents are becoming the 'new population' of the business world," said Chen Shupeng, head of AI payment security at Ant Group. "When they begin to call services and participate in transactions, the industry must answer not only 'who is transacting' but also 'why the transaction is taking place.' APASS helps participants confirm who the collaborating agent is, whom it represents, what authorization it has and whether it is currently trustworthy, and provides traceability when problems occur."
APASS places trusted identity, continuous verification, intent security and trusted evidence across the full process of agent participation in commercial activity. At the identity layer, it uses a three-layer model of static identity, runtime identity and responsible-entity identity, combined with a six-dimensional continuous verification mechanism, to identify an agent, confirm its operating state and link it to the responsible entity behind it. At the behavior layer, it verifies identity and authorization before a transaction, identifies behavioral anomalies and intent deviation during the transaction, applies dynamic risk control, and retains key evidence after the transaction for audits and accountability.
At the forum, Ant disclosed that APASS has connected more than 1 million agents, of which 110,000 are activated, covering 442 agent service providers. It supports different types of agents, including independent assistant, productivity, hardware terminal and merchant service agents. Developers can complete integration in three steps and embed trusted capabilities into service calls, business processing and payments. APASS is designed to adapt to different entities and technical paths, reducing repeated investment in identity access and security integration.
More than 50 organizations have joined the IIFAA Agent Trusted Ecosystem Co-building Plan, including Alibaba, Li Auto, Ant Group, Damai, Lenovo, OPPO, Qwen, StepFun, Xiaomi, Ctrip, Bank Card Testing Center, Zhipu, Zhima Credit, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and China Mobile Jinke. They are working together on alliance standards and implementation. For international protocol alignment, Alipay+ AMP, Mastercard Verifiable Intent and Visa Trusted Agent Protocol are building a KYA interoperability framework to support agent identity verification and trust collaboration in cross-border commercial scenarios.
Ant is extending its long-accumulated identity, security, risk-control and payment capabilities from Alipay to agent scenarios. Alipay addressed how trust is established between people and between people and merchants. APASS explores how trust in action can be established between people and agents, agents and merchants, and agents and agents. As AI moves from thinking for people to acting for people, enabling AI to be identified, authorized, trusted and held accountable may be a necessary layer for agents to move from technology into business and for AI to enter the new AI economy.