Agent Identity Trust Framework: from static identity management to continuous trust management

Abstract

An industry report argued publicly on 11 September 2026 that agent identity governance must shift from static identity management to continuous trust management: issuing an identity card is not enough, because the system must keep judging at every action who the agent is, whom it belongs to, what it is authorized to do and whether it is currently trustworthy. The report splits identity into three layers — product identity (what it is), runtime identity (which instance is running) and accountable-principal identity (whom it acts for) — and combines four signal classes covering identity, environment, behaviour and task context to produce a continuously updated trust state that adjusts with risk. The accompanying reporting cites CAICT Tier Terminal Laboratory figures: fewer than 5 percent of applications embedded AI agents in 2025 against an expected 40 percent in 2026; the fastest successful attack on an agent took only 27 seconds and the average 29 minutes, while traditional security teams respond in hours. Industry bodies further forecast that by 2028, 90 percent of B2B procurement will be intermediated by AI agents, moving more than 15 trillion US dollars of B2B spend through agent trading platforms.