The Linux Foundation announced plans to launch the Agent Name Service (ANS), an open protocol developed by GoDaddy to authenticate AI agents through DNS infrastructure. This moves AI agent verification into a familiar, widely trusted environment, helping enterprises identify, verify permissions, and track changes to AI agents running in their systems.
- ANS uses DNS to anchor AI agent identities with certificates.
- GoDaddy built and ran ANS before donating it to the Linux Foundation.
- ANS aims to address widespread unknown AI agents and related security incidents.
What happened
The Linux Foundation announced its intent to launch the Agent Name Service (ANS), an open standard designed to verify AI agents by anchoring their identity and version information to the Domain Name System (DNS). GoDaddy originally developed ANS, running it in production and integrating it with partners like Salesforce before transferring stewardship to the Linux Foundation. ANS ties AI agents to domain names companies already own and issues cryptographic certificates to ensure the authenticity and permissions of each agent.
ANS's validation process mirrors established web security practices by requiring agents to pass domain ownership checks and obtain both public and private certificates, including options for stronger validation like organization or extended validation certificates. This system creates a tamper-evident log of agent registration, version updates, and revocations, enabling accurate incident investigation and agent provenance tracking.
Why it matters
A recent survey by the Cloud Security Alliance revealed that 82% of organizations found unknown AI agents operating in their infrastructure, with 65% suffering security incidents linked to these agents, leading to data exposure and financial harm. Current security tools and processes struggle to effectively track and verify AI agents, creating significant risks. ANS leverages existing internet infrastructure, improving trust and visibility without requiring proprietary solutions or additional operational overhead.
By establishing a standardized, transparent verification system for AI agents, ANS helps organizations confirm who controls each agent and what version they run. This foundational trust layer is critical as enterprises adopt increasingly autonomous AI tools, reducing the chances of fraud, data leaks, and compliance violations associated with unknown or compromised agents.
What to watch next
The ANS specification is currently a draft at the Internet Engineering Task Force, co-authored by OWASP researchers, Cisco, and GoDaddy’s leadership. Industry stakeholders including Cloudflare, Cisco, Salesforce, Infoblox, and GoDaddy are influential backers who may drive adoption and ecosystem support. The Linux Foundation will play a key role in neutral stewardship, encouraging interoperability and open participation to foster a broad builder and user community.
Enterprises and security product vendors will be watching for reference implementations and integration projects, such as the existing collaboration involving Salesforce’s MuleSoft division. Ongoing developments will focus on refining certificate and version management features to ensure seamless agent identity lifecycle security, while adoption may hinge on awareness campaigns addressing the urgent need for AI agent governance among security professionals.