As AI agents move beyond answering questions and start making purchases, accessing data, and taking action on our behalf, businesses are facing a question they can no longer put off: what is this agent, who authorized it, and what is it allowed to do? In this episode of Inside the SaaS AI Shift, Kristi Perdue sits down with Tom Donlea, VP at Vouched, to unpack why agentic AI is forcing a complete rethink of identity, access, and trust in enterprise software.
Key Takeaways
-
Agentic commerce & fraud risk: Tom explains how AI agents could become the next major attack vector, magnifying the same fraud tactics (synthetic identities, account takeover) that criminals have used for years, just at much greater scale.
-
The verification gap: Why "bot detection" alone isn't enough anymore, and what it actually takes to verify an agent's identity, authorization, and reputation before letting it transact.
-
Real-world stakes: A closer look at the financial and legal exposure businesses face when an unauthorized agent makes a purchase or accesses sensitive healthcare or financial data, and who ends up holding the liability.
-
Governance & guardrails: Practical steps enterprises should put in place before allowing agents to act independently, including what Tom says should never be permitted on "day one."
-
Building industry standards: How Vouched developed the Know Your Agent (KYA) framework and MCP-Identity protocol, and why it was donated to the Decentralized Identity Foundation for open, industry-wide adoption.
-
What's next: Why Tom believes the shift to agent-driven transactions is coming in the next 1 to 3 years, not 5 to 10, and what SaaS leaders should be doing right now to prepare.
Speakers
Kristi Perdue, Founder, AlterBridge Strategies; Host, Inside the SaaS AI Shift
Kristi brings more than 30 years of SaaS experience and is a Certified Chief AI Officer (CAIO) and Certified Information Governance Officer for AI (CIGO/AI). Through Power Moves AI™, she explores the consequential decisions reshaping enterprise software.
Tom Donlea, Vice President, Vouched
Tom has spent nearly two decades in payments, fraud prevention, and digital identity. He was the founding CEO of the Merchant Risk Council, helped expand it into Europe and Asia, and now serves as director emeritus. He also spent close to a decade at Ravelin (AATA) across marketing, partnerships, and APAC growth prior to its acquisition by Mastercard in 2021. At Vouched, he leads partnerships and market expansion for identity verification across healthcare, financial services, and emerging agentic commerce.