Know Your Human (KYH) is the design framework for the temporal gap between delegation and execution. KYC verified identity.
| Dimension | Traditional UX | Agentic Experience Design (AXD) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary material | Attention and affordance | Trust and delegation |
| User state | Present, navigating | Absent, delegating |
| Design output | Screens and interfaces | Outcomes and constraints |
| Temporal model | Session-based | Relationship-based |
| Success metric | Task completion | Trust calibration |
Know Your Human (KYH) is a design framework introduced by the AXD Institute for continuous validation of a human principal's current authorisation behind an autonomous agent. It addresses the temporal gap between the moment of delegation (when a human configures an agent's mandate) and the moment of execution (when the agent acts), ensuring that the human's current circumstances, intentions, and authority are maintained across the full lifecycle of a delegated relationship.
Authority drift is the progressive divergence between a human principal's current intentions and the standing mandate their agent continues to execute. It is not fraud or technical failure - it is an inherent structural property of any system in which a human grants delegated authority at one point in time and an agent exercises that authority continuously across subsequent time. Authority drift is invisible to institutions receiving agent-initiated transactions because nothing in current system
The Three Moments of Human Authority is the AXD Institute's framework for mapping trust in delegated transactions. The first is the moment of intent (addressed by KYC - Know Your Customer), where the human's identity is verified at onboarding. The second is the moment of delegation (addressed by KYA - Know Your Agent), where the agent's legitimacy and traceability are established. The third is the moment of execution (addressed by KYH - Know Your Human), where the continuous validity of the huma
Graceful suspension is the default state of a KYH-compliant agentic system when current human authorisation cannot be confirmed. The agent stops, surfaces the question, and waits for a present signal from the principal before proceeding. This contrasts with the default state of most current agentic systems, which is continuation unless explicitly stopped. Graceful suspension treats the human's current authorisation as a prerequisite, not a presumption.
KYC (Know Your Customer) is a regulatory obligation that verifies identity at a point in time. KYA (Know Your Agent) is an emerging credential framework that establishes the traceability of an autonomous system. KYH (Know Your Human) is a design principle that maintains the continuous, living relationship between an autonomous system and the human whose authority it exercises. The three form a progression: KYC established the human's existence, KYA establishes the agent's legitimacy, KYH maintai
A customer opens their AI agent on a Friday evening. They configure a set of standing instructions: reorder household supplies when stock runs low, renew subscriptions before they lapse, flag any financial product that beats their current mortgage rate and initiate a comparison. They have delegated, deliberately and explicitly, a portion of their decision-making to a machine. The machine accepts the delegation. It begins. Six weeks later, the customer loses their job. Their agent does not know. Their agent was not designed to know. Their agent continues to execute: reordering, renewing, flagging, initiating. The mandate was granted. The instructions are technically valid. The payment credentials remain active. Every transaction the agent initiates passes the compliance checks that were designed for the moment of onboarding, not the moment of execution. On the other side of those transactions, a retailer receives an automated order. A subscription platform processes a renewal. A financial services institution receives an inquiry - then an application - from an agent acting on behalf of a human whose financial circumstances have changed materially since the mandate was issued. None of these institutions know. They cannot know. The systems they built were designed to see the agent. They were not designed to see the human behind it. This is the design failure at the centre of the agentic economy. Not fraud. Not technical failure. A failure of design philosophy - the assumption, baked into an entire era of digital infrastructure, that verifying identity at the point of onboarding is sufficient to sustain trust across the full duration of a delegated relationship. The AXD Institute calls the framework required to close this gap This essay defines the problem, maps the existing infrastructure that does not solve it, and sets out the design principles that do. Every delegated transaction in the agentic economy passes through three distinct moments of human authority. Each m