Verifiable Credentials make it possible for AI to act securely and autonomously on your behalf across systems, platforms, and services—and they’re the key to enabling trusted automation at scale.
This is part of our series on Agentic AI and verifiable credentials. Take a look at parts one, two, and three, where we provide an overview about the intersection between these two groundbreaking technologies.
By Helen Garneau
AI tools are getting better at handling tasks—but in most cases, they’re still stuck in “assist” mode. They wait for prompts. They offer suggestions. Maybe they fill in a form or summarize an email. That’s helpful, but it’s not transformational.
The vision for AI is agentic — that it can act autonomously, move across systems, and handle tasks end-to-end.
If agentic AI is going to deliver on that vision, agents need to be identifiable — they need digital identities. And so do you — if those agents are going to access your data and solve your problems.
It’s not enough for an AI to be smart. It has to be trusted.
An AI agent needs to be able to prove who it belongs to: your bank, a government agency, a train company. This authentication needs to be seamless and it also needs to be verifiable in a way that you can be absolutely sure of its identity. This is where Verifiable Credentials (VCs) come in. Verifiable credentials allow AI agents to prove they’re acting on behalf of a specific, authenticated user—and prove they are who they say they are. That radically simplifies orchestration, trust, and decision-making.
Verifiable credentials let us go from basic automation to complex orchestration. From “Alexa, play music” to “Agent, make a reservation at X for Y time and pay with my credit card.”
When each agent holds a credentialed identity they can become a coordinated system:
- Consent is simple and direct. No need for re-authentication workflows.
- Transactions are secure and verifiable. The source of the data and action is cryptographically proven.
- Inter-agent communication is trusted. A digital finance agent can interact with a travel agent because they’re both verified and operating under clear delegation from you.
The result? Your agents become a team. Not just a stack of tools, but a coordinated group of trusted digital representatives—working on your behalf across domains, platforms, and organizations.
They don’t just say “I’m here to help Helen.”
They say “Here’s cryptographic proof I represent Helen, and I’ve got permission to do this.”
The system on the other side instantly verifies this and responds.
This is the leap—from bots that follow commands to agents that represent you.
No back-and-forth. No friction. Just action on your behalf.
So the next time my flight gets canceled, my AI travel agent gets to work by rebooking instantly. Meanwhile, my loyalty program agent negotiates a new hotel reservation. My finance agent checks spending limits and negotiates the price to get me a new rental car. All of it happens securely, seamlessly while I’m sitting at a gate with 1% battery—without needing to open three apps, dig through my inbox, or verify my identity again.
How? Each agent has proof it can act for me. The airline trusts it. The hotel trusts it. My calendar trusts it. I don’t have to touch a thing.
Why This Matters for Business
In enterprise environments, this architecture scales. Verified agents can:
- Act across departments with audit trails
- Coordinate approvals and processes faster
- Trigger smart workflows across platforms
- Maintain compliance and data minimization with consent baked into every transaction
Think: HR agents issuing employee credentials, finance agents processing invoices, customer service agents accessing secure user profiles—all without the integration headaches or security concerns of today’s fragmented systems.
The future of AI is personal, trusted, and credentialed
AI doesn’t have to be a buzzword or a half-functional assistant. It can be a fully credentialed representative, trusted to act on your behalf—across systems, across domains, across the world.
At Indicio, we’re building the identity infrastructure that makes this future possible—today.
Because when AI agents can prove who they are and who they work for, the digital world starts to feel less like a maze… and more like a concierge desk. Come build with us today.
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