- ServiceNow announced AI Passport, a signed credential checked at runtime to confirm what an AI agent may do. InfoWorld reports it is expected by year end.
- One analyst says a passport is only as trustworthy as the records behind it. Cost enforcement is described in future tense.
- Name an owner and a budget for every agent and background routine before launch, and ask vendors whether firm spending caps exist today.
Every employee has a badge, a manager and a budget. Software agents that act for staff need the same. ServiceNow has announced the first piece. Its approach is to check an agent at the door instead of trusting the agent's own account of itself.
What ServiceNow announced
InfoWorld reports that ServiceNow is adding features to its AI Control Tower and renaming it Super Intelligence Control Tower. The main addition is AI Passport. It is meant to give each agent, from ServiceNow or a third party, an identity that can be verified. It also controls what the agent does while it runs. ServiceNow expects AI Passport to be available by year end.
Nenshad Bardoliwalla, ServiceNow's SVP of AI product management, set out the need. Companies moving agents from pilots to production must know which agents are running, what they do and what they can reach.
How a passport works
Think of a passport at a border. The officer does not take the traveller's word. The officer checks a document signed by a trusted authority. An AI Passport is the software version: a digitally signed record of what the company has allowed an agent to do.
The record is checked while the agent runs. Inside its scope, the agent works freely. If it strays, ServiceNow says set actions apply. The agent can be redirected, restricted or reconnected with the right context. A shutoff is also possible. Each action is logged for audit.
ServiceNow says the design rests on open specifications. Other governance tools and identity providers can then issue and verify the credentials. They should stay verifiable at each step of a workflow with many agents.
A passport is only as good as the office behind it
Frank Dickson of Dickson Research called this a real step forward. He said most agent governance today works like a security camera. It records events for review later. A passport, in his words, is a bouncer at every door.
He also said that for outside agents, the passport replaces the agent's own claims about its permissions. He called taking an agent's word a weak spot of agentic AI.
Then he named the catch. The office that issues the passport is ServiceNow's configuration database (CMDB), its governance policies and its workflow approvals. If that data is stale, he said, so is the passport.
This is the practical lesson. A signature proves who issued a credential. It does not prove the records behind it are current. Firms that adopt agent identity also take on a data-quality job. That work may not be in the plan.
Openness is a second test. Dickson said an open specification matters only once others adopt it. Nvidia is the launch partner. ServiceNow itself says the enforcement side is still being built.
A meter is not a brake
The release also covers cost. ServiceNow says Control Tower shows spending by person, department and runtime. It links that spending to quality and value.
An analyst quoted by InfoWorld says the brake is another matter. Alerts, then throttling, then blocking are all described in future tense. Three pieces are expected by year end: AI Passport, the tool that finds unapproved agents, and the cost tool.
"A meter you can watch is not a brake," the analyst said.
Productivity Routines show why this matters. Employees can set them up to run in the background and deliver results with no human involved. They are in controlled availability now. Dickson called this unsupervised work that someone should own. An analyst quoted by InfoWorld called a daily routine a "standing purchase order" that someone should sign.
ToolSmith lets developers build automations by describing them in plain language. ServiceNow says it cuts tool building "from days to minutes." Faster building means more agents and routines to identify, own and pay for.
What leaders should ask
An analyst quoted by InfoWorld gave a short sequence on cost. Use it as a checklist for your team and your vendors.
First, name a responsible person for each agent and routine. Set its spending limit before launch. Second, ask how background routines count toward billing. Ask whether firm spending caps exist today. Third, when throttling ships, switch it on. Then compare the vendor's dashboards with your own invoices.
Add two questions of your own. Who maintains the records behind passports, and how often are they checked? Which agents from other vendors could carry a credential that another system will verify?
That analyst still thinks ServiceNow has the right idea. Until the spending brakes ship, a person must set the limit.
Produced by the WebPulse Newsroom with AI assistance from the original reporting credited below, and checked against that source by our editorial review. How we use AI.
Original reporting: InfoWorld.
