Tools for Humanity (TFH), the company behind the World project co-founded by Sam Altman, has launched AgentKit, a beta developer toolkit designed to verify that AI agents are acting on behalf of unique humans. The system integrates World's biometric-based World ID identity system with the x402 protocol, an open standard for automated transactions developed by Coinbase and Cloudflare.
Announced on June 9 from San Francisco, AgentKit allows developers to program websites and APIs to request cryptographic proof that an AI shopping bot, reservation booker, or price-comparison agent represents a verified human. This aims to address growing concerns about bots, scalpers, and automated abuse as AI agents take on more user tasks. "Right now, there are a lot of services where agents can spam them—social platforms, or things like ticket sales," said DC Builder, a research engineer at the World Foundation. "Think of Ticketmaster: if you delegate an agent the ability to book tickets, you can spawn like 100,000 tickets."
The verification relies on World ID, which is most securely obtained via a physical iris scan using TFH's Orb device. Once a user's AI agent is linked to their World ID, it can prove it represents a human without revealing the person's identity. By extending to the x402 protocol, sites can request this proof of human alongside or instead of micropayments before granting access. "What this lets you do is program against the knowledge of whether the request is coming from a human or an agent—or an agent tied to a human," explained Erik Reppel, head of engineering for Coinbase’s developer platform.
The launch responds to the explosive growth of "agentic commerce," with major platforms like Amazon and MasterCard already introducing automated buying features. Tiago Sada, TFH’s Chief Product Officer, compared the concept to granting a 'power of attorney' to a digital agent. The World network reportedly includes nearly 18 million verified individuals across over 160 countries. While the orb rewards users with Worldcoin (WLD) tokens, tokens are not necessary to use AgentKit.
The technology could help platforms enforce limits or allocate resources based on the number of unique people rather than the number of automated agents, aiming to maintain human interaction online. "I think there’s a lot of the internet where it doesn’t matter that much if it’s human or agent, and a lot of the internet where it really, really matters," Reppel added.
