The National Institutes of Standards and Technology is launching a new project around standards for artificial intelligence agents, with NIST positioning the project as key to advancing agentic AI innovation. NIST’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) announced the “AI Agent Standards Initiative” this week. The project aims to foster “industry-led technical standards and protocols that build public trust in AI agents, catalyze an interoperable agent ecosystem, and diffuse their benefits to all Americans and across the world,” NIST said in a release this week. “AI agents can now work autonomously for hours, write and debug code, manage emails and calendars, and shop for goods, among other emerging use cases,” NIST added. “While the productivity promise is enticing, the real-world utility of agents is constrained by their ability to interact with external systems and internal data. Absent confidence in the reliability of AI agents and interoperability among agents and digital resources, innovators may face a fragmented ecosystem and stunted adoption.”

Full report : Before AI agents run amok, a new NIST project is seeking feedback on the secure use of the fast evolving technology.