Identity Digital Launches Neutral, DNS-Anchored Identity Standard for AI Agents
DNSid: A durable, governable identifier that binds every AI agent to verifiable ownership, enabling secure interoperability across organizations with a persistent, verifiable identity
75% of businesses say that security, compliance, and auditability are the most critical requirements for agent deployment
BELLEVUE, Wash., April 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Identity Digital®, a tech company specializing in the domain name system (DNS), and governing and operating the world’s largest top-level domain portfolio, today launched Innovation Labs, a division focused on solving identity fragmentation for AI agents. The division’s first solution, DNSid™, is a durable and governable identifier that binds every AI agent to verifiable ownership, essentially a birth certificate that every other system can recognize and verify.
Each time an autonomous agent moves across platforms, it receives new credentials and assumes a new identity. While existing solutions address authentication, workload identity, or session security, none can clearly state who is accountable for an agent, nor can they independently verify that information. Accountability and governance are impossible without a persistent identifier that can be reliably located.
DNSid provides this critical universal ownership standard for AI agents, managing enterprise risk and enabling interoperability. Built on existing domain name system (DNS) infrastructure, PKI and blockchain technology, the DNSid framework lays the foundation for secure, scalable interoperability, giving AI agents a persistent identity that works across platforms, environments, and over time.
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“AI agents have moved from experimentation to production almost overnight. Enterprises across every sector aren’t just deploying them, they are scrambling to establish real security, governance and control,” said Akram Atallah, CEO, Identity Digital. “The urgency is justified. Agents are already acting unpredictably, sometimes in error, sometimes in ways that create real risk. DNSid delivers the missing ownership and accountability layer that an AI-driven economy urgently requires.”
“The trust layer has taken on a new level of urgency as enterprises look to scale agentic AI,” said Daniela Barbosa, General Manager, Decentralized Technologies, Linux Foundation, and Executive Director, LF Decentralized Trust. “Identity and authentication in the face of autonomous actors will challenge the industry in unprecedented ways and require new levels of openness and collaboration. Innovation Labs is launching with a standards-based approach and, as part of the LF Decentralized Trust member community, is embracing open development and governance as the path to delivering trust at scale.”
Introducing DNSid
Innovation Labs and DNSid launch at an inflection point for enterprise AI. Agents are moving from controlled experimentation into mission-critical operations. Once built, these agents can act autonomously, execute financial transactions, interact with other agents and software platforms, and cross enterprise ecosystems. This often happens at machine speed and beyond direct human supervision.
Innovation Labs was created to establish the missing ownership layer required for AI agents to scale responsibly. Identity Digital, operates and governs the world’s largest portfolio of top-level domains, bringing decades of DNS stewardship and global coordination expertise to the challenge of agent identity.
DNSid leverages globally adopted DNS to anchor each agent to a domain, plus PKI and blockchain technology, the smallest set of components needed to solve the problem. There is no new protocol to adopt and no new trust agreement to establish. DNS already serves as the internet’s universal coordination layer, relied upon by every enterprise, cloud provider and digital service, including the infrastructure AI agents depend on to operate.
Each DNSid identifier is:
- Neutral — Not owned or controlled by any single vendor or platform
- Independently Verified — Resolvable in any environment
- Globally Unique — Enforced through established DNS governance
- Durable / Long Lasting — Persistent across the full lifecycle of an agent
DNSid maintains the authoritative record of an agent’s identifier, ownership, transfer and revocation status. It does not authenticate agents or enforce run-time policy. Those functions remain with identity and security systems layered above it. DNSid provides the foundation – a permanent, globally resolvable ownership anchor – on which secure, accountable agent ecosystems can be built.
Preventing material risk
AI agents are now the fastest-growing, and least governed, class of digital actors in the enterprise. Once deployed beyond controlled environments, they can become effectively unattributable, creating material risk for CISOs, risk officers, CEOs, boards, and regulators. An agent authorized to move $3,450 between accounts could, through error or compromise, initiate a $345 million transfer instead. Without verifiable, durable ownership, there may be no immediate way to determine who is responsible or to hold any party accountable. In an economy increasingly powered by autonomous systems, unattributable agents are not a technical gap; they are a systemic financial and governance risk.
“AI agent chaos isn’t theoretical. It’s happening right now,” said Lauren Goulston, general manager, Identity Digital Innovation Labs. “Autonomous agents are scaling faster than the standards needed to govern them. Without a universal approach, enterprises risk losing control as agents operate with bank accounts, software, and other sensitive information, all beyond human oversight. At Innovation Labs, we’re tackling the fragmentation in the agent economy, unlocking its full potential for responsible, scalable growth.”
One in five organizations has already experienced an AI agent-related security incident, and among those, 97% lacked proper AI access controls, according to research from SailPoint. The potential escalation of these incidents is holding back wider adoption, as 75% of businesses say that security, compliance, and auditability are the most critical requirements for agent deployment, according to KPMG.
About Innovation Labs:
Innovation Labs is a division of Identity Digital that solves identity fragmentation for the AI agent economy. As agents become more autonomous and interoperable, they introduce risk and security challenges existing systems weren't designed for- starting with a consistent way to verify ownership across organizational boundaries. Innovation Labs combines Identity Digital’s DNS expertise with blockchain to establish a global coordination layer for AI agent identity, and participates in open standards communities, including the Linux Foundation. For more information, visit www.DNSid.ai.
About Identity Digital:
Identity Digital Inc. simplifies and connects the online world with domain names and related technologies to empower people to build, market, and own their authentic digital identities. With the world’s largest portfolio of TLDs, including .llc, .pro, .world, .fyi, and .studio, Identity Digital supports over 28 million domains on its innovative registry services platform. In addition, Identity Digital enables customers to discover, register, support, and use high-quality domain names with its registrar, name.com. Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, Identity Digital is a global company with approximately 250 employees. For more information, visit identity.digital.
Attributions: Venturebeat,12/25 Legacy IAM Was Built For Humans – and AI Agents Now Outnumber Them 82 to 1; SailPoint Special Report: AI Agents: The New Attack Surface; KPMG, 1/26: AI at Scale: How 2025 Set the Stage For Agent Drive Enterprise Reinvention in 2026.
Media Contact:
Aimee Miller
aimee@broadsheetcomms.com
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