Skyfire & Cequence partner to enable secure AI agent access
Skyfire and Cequence Security have announced a partnership to provide secure and compliant access to digital services for autonomous AI agents.
The collaboration will see Cequence Security support Skyfire's identity and payment protocol, making it possible for security teams to recognise and authorise verified AI agents while maintaining defences against scraping, fraud, and malicious automation.
Cequence Security, which reports securing over 8 billion API interactions daily and protecting more than 3 billion user accounts worldwide, historically differentiated between beneficial and harmful bots. The addition of Skyfire integration means Cequence Security can now also identify trusted agents verified by Skyfire.
This capability enables AI agents to access websites, APIs and applications securely, potentially creating new revenue streams for data service providers as AI agents become an increasingly significant category of internet consumers.
Despite the growing prevalence of AI agents in online activities, most digital services remain structured for human interaction, involving steps such as signing up, verification, login and payment. These requirements have typically excluded agents from accessing services that require authentication or payment.
Skyfire addresses this by facilitating agent-first infrastructure for identity and payments. According to the company, using Skyfire, AI agents can present verified credentials and payment methods programmatically, gaining access to digital services without requiring manual account creation or previously arranged contracts. Agents can connect to both public and private digital resources over secure connections in a manner comparable to human users.
The partnership introduces native support for Skyfire's protocol in Cequence products, enabling security teams not only to block abusive bots but also to grant access to verified, authorised AI agents.
Amir Sarhangi, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Skyfire, said, "AI agents aren't just scraping the surface of the web anymore. They're transacting, subscribing, booking, and buying. But they've been locked out by security measures that assume every brand engagement is coming from a user who has fingers and a keyboard. Through our partnership with Cequence, we're enabling an internet where agents are first-class participants in the digital economy, and where identity and security protocols work with them, not against them."
Skyfire's technology assigns each AI agent a programmable wallet containing funding sources such as cards, ACH, wire, and USDC, along with identity credentials and enterprise-grade payment rules. Cequence's platform uses multi-dimensional machine learning to evaluate a range of signals, now including those from Skyfire-issued identifiers, to determine agent legitimacy and ensure that only monetisable agents interact with business services.
This approach seeks to address a key challenge in the AI economy: the limited ability of agents to access digital content that lies behind authentication or payment barriers, due in large part to security protections designed for human users.
The companies highlight that security in an API-driven world has evolved from simply stopping attackers to also recognising trusted, non-human automation. Cequence Security says its solution delivers both deep API visibility and native enforcement, allowing security teams to assess behaviour, identify intent, and make access decisions at the edge without modifying applications or relying on external tools.
Cequence Security contends that while competing platforms may depend on JavaScript, SDKs, or generic assessments, its approach is rooted in context-aware detection based on traffic patterns and machine learning. The company says this helps security teams adapt to fast-changing automated threats and extend access to trusted AI agents without increasing vulnerability to abuse.
Ameya Talwalkar, Chief Executive Officer of Cequence, said, "Security should never be a barrier to business. Our mission has always been to protect the internet without slowing innovation, and that includes AI agents. With Skyfire, we now have a shared framework to verify and trust additional non-human users at the edge. This unlocks a new era where businesses can safely serve AI agents the same way they serve human users, securely, seamlessly, and at scale."
