Meta, Sierra, and Industry Partners Launch Personal Agent Protocol (PAP)
Meta, AI startup Sierra, and enterprise partners including Shopify, Stripe, and Walmart have launched the Personal Agent Protocol (PAP). This open standard defines how consumers' personal AI agents securely interact and execute tasks with enterprise services. As personal AI assistants become mainstream, standardizing agent-to-business communications is critical for security and ecosystem interoperability. PAP gives users control over access permissions while allowing enterprises to enforce clear parameters on automated actions. Built on established protocols like OAuth, PAP relies on website discovery and session authorization to route requests through a company's web interfaces, APIs, or custom AI agents. The framework balances user autonomy with corporate security and auditability.
## BACKGROUND
Personal AI agents are autonomous software tools capable of executing actions on external platforms on behalf of users, such as making purchases or managing subscriptions. OAuth is an industry-standard open protocol for authorization that lets third-party services access user resources securely without sharing passwords.