That’s according to a report Monday (June 29) from The Information, which notes that the rise of AI agents has introduced some critical questions. These include: “How can users make sure their personal information remains confidential?” and whether tech giants like Meta and Google can “throttle” agents from other services.
Warner’s bill, a draft of which was seen by The Information, could be the first legislative framework to establish rules to deal with such scenarios.
The report notes that Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, has been at the forefront of the agent issue for years. Last year, he reintroduced the Access Act — originally created to encourage competition across social media — with provisions that allow users to designate agents to act for them on social platforms.
A senior legislative aide with knowledge of Warner’s bills told The Information this legislation could protect users’ ability to access services from website to website, such as a person who wanted to instruct an outside agent to buy products from Facebook Marketplace.
According to the report, some tech companies have objected to outside agents out of fear that fewer human visitors will mean lower ad revenue. Amazon has updated its code to keep out competing agents, though the company’s CEO told The Information earlier this year he was amenable to permitting third-party agents.
In related news, PYMNTS wrote Monday about the increasing call for Know Your Agent standards, similar to the Know Your Customer model established by the financial world during the 1970s.
“AI agents are already transacting across retail, finance, travel and enterprise procurement at speeds no human oversight loop can match,” the report said. “The identity infrastructure that would allow any party to verify who an agent is, what it is authorized to do, and whether it is acting within sanctioned limits does not yet exist at scale.”
That report also cites a World Economic Forum article by Johnny Ayers, chief executive of identity company Socure, which argues that the agent-driven economy “is no longer emerging.”
By Black Friday 2025, AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites had jumped 805% year over year, with agents fueling more than $22 billion in global online sales. The global AI agents market, valued at $5.4 billion two years ago, is forecast to reach $236 billion by 2034.
