Proof and Enigma Take on Agentic Trust with a Certificate Program – Digital Transactions

Identity-authorization network Proof and business-identity platform Enigma Technologies Inc. are looking to a new certificate program to take on the issue of how to trust businesses operating in an agentic-commerce environment.

Announced Thursday, the program, called Business Certificates, will be a verified credential layer that identifies a participating business to individuals and systems operating in an agentic-commerce function. Agentic commerce provides a way for an artificial-intelligence agent to conduct authorized activity on behalf of a business or individual.

Boston-based Notarize Inc., which does business as Proof, says Business Certificates are verified credentials it issues that “bind a current, continuously maintained business identity to the people and systems permitted to act on that business’s behalf.” Enigma will provide data points on more than 100 million U.S. legal entities, 75 million individuals, 33 million brands, and 31 million locations. It continuously matches this data against a variety of government records and submitted data. A business’s status is reflected immediately when changes are detected, it says.

While the technology to enable agentic commerce is developing quickly, trust in the new way of shopping is taking a bit more time. Just 19% of adult consumers trust that AI agents will abide by guidance in making day-to-day purchasing actions, found a June YouGov survey commissioned by ACI Worldwide Inc.

“Trust starts with better business identity. The more digital and AI-driven the economy becomes, the more important it is to ground decisions in a reliable understanding of which businesses are real, how they are connected, and who can act for them,” Hicham Oudghiri, Enigma chief executive, says in a statement.

The Business Certificates can help, especially when it comes to payments. One could help prevent payment and wire fraud if a Business Certificate is bound to a wire instruction to ensure, for example, the receiving account legitimately belongs to the entity it’s assigned to. Similarly, “ACH changes and account update requests can be signed with a Business Certificate, preventing fraudsters from redirecting payments by impersonating a vendor,” a Proof statement says.

They also can be used to thwart business impersonation by being attached to press releases, account statements, and vendor contracts, Proof says.

Business Certificates also mesh with Proof’s newly launched x401 protocol, which Proof says is open and issuer-neutral, allows Web sites and APIs to ask for and verify who is behind the agents. The agent is then expected to present a credential and authorization. Business Certificates, using Engima’s know-your-business data, provide the business identity layer x401 can use in any agentic transaction.