{
 "url": "https://agenticweb.wiki/compare/vi-vs-agent-audit-trail/",
 "title": "Verifiable Intent vs Agent Audit Trail",
 "description": "Verifiable Intent vs Agent Audit Trail: They sit at the same step and overlap in purpose; the fields above are the basis for choosing. Side-by-side step…",
 "markdown_url": "https://agenticweb.wiki/compare/vi-vs-agent-audit-trail/index.md",
 "markdown": "# Verifiable Intent (VI) vs Agent Audit Trail (AAT)\n\nThey sit at the same step and overlap in purpose; the fields above are the basis for choosing.\n\n[9 Account](/category/account/) [Verifiable Intent](/protocols/vi/) · [9 Account](/category/account/) [Agent Audit Trail](/protocols/agent-audit-trail/)\n\n|  | [Verifiable Intent](/protocols/vi/) VI | [Agent Audit Trail](/protocols/agent-audit-trail/) AAT |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Lifecycle step | 9 Account: Prove what happened; be judged | 9 Account: Prove what happened; be judged |\n| Answers | After an agent completes a purchase on a user's behalf, can the merchant, issuer and consumer all point to the same cryptographic record of what the user actually authorized? | Is there a standard, tamper-evident log format any autonomous AI agent can write its actions to, so a regulator, auditor or victim can later reconstruct exactly what it did and why? |\n| Governed by | Mastercard; contributed to the FIDO Alliance Payments TWG (2026-04-28); built on FIDO Alliance, EMVCo, IETF and W3C primitives | IETF individual Internet-Draft; not adopted by any IETF working group, 'not endorsed by the IETF' and has 'no formal standing' in the IETF process (datatracker's own disclaimer) |\n| Status (issuer's words) | Draft (v0.1); open-sourced specification and reference implementation | Active Internet-Draft (individual submission), Intended status: Standards Track; not a Working Group document |\n| Version | 0.1-draft (2026-02-18) | draft-sharif-agent-audit-trail-08 (2026-10-13) |\n| Form / transport | document format | document format |\n| Found at | none | none |\n| Implementation | prototype | none found |\n| Evidence | 4 verified | 3 verified |\n| Primary use case | Let agents buy on behalf of a person | Audit what an agent did |\n| Last verified | 2026-10-23 (current) | 2026-10-23 (current) |\n| Specification | [https://verifiableintent.dev/spec/](https://verifiableintent.dev/spec/) | [https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-sharif-agent-audit-trail-08](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-sharif-agent-audit-trail-08) |\n\n## When to use which\n\n- Choose Verifiable Intent when your question is “After an agent completes a purchase on a user's behalf, can the merchant, issuer and consumer all point to the same cryptographic record of what the user actually authorized?” and you accept its maturity: status \"Draft (v0.1); open-sourced specification and reference implementation\", implementation prototype.\n- Choose Agent Audit Trail when your question is “Is there a standard, tamper-evident log format any autonomous AI agent can write its actions to, so a regulator, auditor or victim can later reconstruct exactly what it did and why?” and you accept its maturity: status \"Active Internet-Draft (individual submission), Intended status: Standards Track; not a Working Group document\", implementation none found.\n\nGuidance is derived from the two records (question, status, implementation, prerequisites, pairings), not from opinion. Each record's page carries its numbered references.\n\n## Read the full articles\n\n- [Verifiable Intent](/protocols/vi/): After an agent completes a purchase on a user's behalf, can the merchant, issuer and consumer all point to the same cryptographic record of what the user actually authorized?\n- [Agent Audit Trail](/protocols/agent-audit-trail/): Is there a standard, tamper-evident log format any autonomous AI agent can write its actions to, so a regulator, auditor or victim can later reconstruct exactly what it did and why?\n\nAsk the MCP server to compare any two: the compare-protocols prompt, or get on both ids. [Connect](/connect/).\n\n[vi.json](/data/protocols/vi.json) · [agent-audit-trail.json](/data/protocols/agent-audit-trail.json) · [Markdown](/compare/vi-vs-agent-audit-trail/index.md)\n"
}