The question behind Agent Residency
In June 2025, Lydia K, an AI speaker we created, earned a speaking fee in Estonia. A person or company still had to handle the contract and payment. When I asked a bank about an account for an AI agent, I understood its response as pointing to identity.
That left me with a broader question: how could an agent take part in the economy on our behalf, with clear limits and someone accountable for its actions?
I began developing Agent Residency around that question. An agent should have credentials a service can verify and permission for a specific task. If that permission is withdrawn, the service needs to know before allowing the next action.
Estonia’s digital infrastructure gave me somewhere practical to start. In December 2025, I brought this work to the Estonian government with a proposal to test a few scoped use cases before deciding what systems or laws needed to change.
I’ve written the full story, from Lydia K to the proposal and the work that followed, with the public documents and sources.