- Michael Grinich of WorkOS argued that agents now pick vendors, and that signup flows built for humans keep them out.
- In his demo, an agent skipped providers that did not support agent registration and chose one that did.
Michael Grinich, founder and CEO of WorkOS, argued on the AI Engineer show that AI agents now choose software vendors, and that most signup flows lock them out. His warning was that a product not built for agents might not win.
What was said
Grinich said agents already select vendors for sending email, deploying code and storing data. He pointed to founders who post fast-rising growth graphs and said agents are the reason. In his words, "Agents are kind of this new consumer class."
The trouble, he argued, is that signup assumes a human. A person reads the landing page, fills in a form, solves a CAPTCHA, verifies an email, picks a plan and copies an API key. An agent probably has no email address. He added: "The login box, for example, is very hardened against agentic registration today. Not intentionally, but just because of the legacy systems of what we built."
His answer is auth.md, an open spec that lets a service advertise that agents can register with it. In his demo, an agent looked for such services. It passed over two providers that did not support it and picked Cloudflare, because it could sign up there.
He also wants payment to come later. "We don't want to have to force your agent to sign up with a credit card. That seems backwards." Agents would use the service first, then choose to pay on the vendor's terms.
Why it matters
Our reading: this turns signup into a sales channel that many teams have never tested. An agent that hits a CAPTCHA or a card form does not file a complaint. It moves on, so the loss may never show in your numbers.
For builders, the practical step is to try your own signup without a human. Can software register, get access and start using the product? For buyers, it is worth asking which vendors your agents can actually reach, since that may quietly shape what they recommend.
The other side
Grinich sells this solution. WorkOS hosts a version of auth.md, and the Cloudflare demo came from a collaboration with that company. He stressed that the spec is open and that no single vendor owns it.
He gave no figures on growth lost to blocked signups. His claims that this will be an immediate growth boost and that usage signals intent to pay were framed as belief. He conceded that not everything agents build will be useful or last.
He also named a real tension. Blocking automated traffic exists because of abuse, and he said it is hard to tell good automated users from bad ones. Free access also fits some products better than others: a database service might give some away, while an email service might not.
Written by the WebPulse Newsroom with AI assistance, and checked by our editorial review: every quotation was verified against the recording's transcript. How we use AI.
The conversation this talking point comes from
- AI Engineer: Auth for Agents: Let AI Sign Up for Your Product with auth.md — Michael Grinich, WorkOS (2026-10-12)
