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GLOSSARY TERM

Agentic Web

The agentic web is the internet infrastructure optimized for autonomous agents to discover, negotiate, and transact without human intervention. It includes machine-readable policies, payment protocols, verifiable receipts, and standardized communication patterns for agent-to-agent commerce.

Key characteristics

  • Machine-readable policies - Terms of service, pricing, and usage rules in formats agents can parse (AIPREF, PEAC)
  • Automated payment flows - Agents discover pricing and pay for services using protocols like HTTP 402 and x402
  • Verifiable receipts - Cryptographic proof of payment, access, and compliance (PEAC-Receipt JWS tokens)
  • Agent-to-agent protocols - Standardized communication patterns for discovery, negotiation, and settlement
  • Decentralized trust - Cryptographic verification instead of centralized intermediaries

Traditional web vs agentic web

Traditional Web

  • Optimized for humans
  • HTML/visual interfaces
  • Manual sign-ups & billing
  • Cookie/session auth

Agentic Web

  • Optimized for agents
  • JSON/structured data
  • Automated discovery & payment
  • Cryptographic receipts

Core protocols

PEAC

Policy discovery and verifiable receipts. Agents discover terms and present cryptographic proof of compliance.

HTTP 402

Payment-required status code. Signals that payment is needed to access a resource with inline payment hints.

A2A

Agent-to-agent communication protocols. Standardized patterns for discovery, negotiation, and settlement.

MCP

Model Context Protocol. Enables agents to connect to data sources and services with standardized interfaces.

Use cases

  • API marketplaces - Agents discover and pay for API access without manual billing setup
  • Content licensing - Publishers monetize content with automated agent-friendly licensing
  • AI training compliance - Agents discover usage policies and prove compliance with receipts
  • Micropayments - Pay-per-use models for computational resources, data, and services
  • Decentralized commerce - Agent-to-agent transactions without platform intermediaries

Why the agentic web matters

As AI agents become more capable and autonomous, they need infrastructure that enables them to operate independently. The agentic web provides standardized protocols for agents to:

  • Discover services and pricing programmatically
  • Negotiate terms and make payments automatically
  • Prove compliance and maintain audit trails
  • Transact at machine speed without human bottlenecks

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