Infoblox and GoDaddy have jointly announced their endorsement of open standards designed to aid Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents in recognising, locating, and verifying each other on the open web. Infoblox is advancing DNS for AI Discovery (DNS-AID), utilising the existing Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure for a cooperative approach to agent identification.
Concurrently, GoDaddy is collaborating on the development of the Agent Name Service (ANS), a standard aimed at agent identity and verification supported by DNS and public key infrastructure (PKI). These initiatives are collectively being developed in standard-setting communities to ensure broad implementation and prevent monopolisation by a limited number of vendors.
Open standards benefits
The initiatives by Infoblox and GoDaddy are grounded in the belief that no single entity or a concentrated group should monopolise the control of agent identification on the internet. As AI agents become more integrated with websites, applications, and enterprise systems, open standards will play a vital role in verifying agent interactions.
"Agents will only reach their full potential on the open web if people and systems can verify who they are interacting with," said Jared Sine, chief strategy and legal officer at GoDaddy. He further emphasised that implementing the ANS open standard could leverage existing DNS infrastructure to facilitate this process.
Utilising proven infrastructure
Chen highlights that DNS has become a cornerstone of digital trust
Wei Chen, Chief Legal Officer at Infoblox, draws parallels between the open, federated protocol of DNS and previous attempts at centralised internet systems.
Chen highlights that DNS has become a cornerstone of digital trust, providing a scalable foundation for discovering and verifying AI agents through existing infrastructure. The DNS-AID standard, now an IETF draft and open-source project, defines a method for AI agents to share discoverable metadata utilising current DNS records, such as RFC 9460 Service Bindings (SVCB) and DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE).
Promoting agent identity and discovery
DNS-AID seeks to establish an open standard discovery layer, while ANS focuses on identity, naming, and verification for AI agents via DNS and PKI.
GoDaddy, a co-author of the ANS IETF draft, envisions ANS allowing agents to use existing domain names for identification without requiring new registries. Infoblox and GoDaddy promote the idea that both ANS and DNS-AID, sharing a DNS and PKI foundation, collectively provide a comprehensive solution to agent identity and discovery within an open internet framework.
Future of agentic internet
Infoblox and GoDaddy advocate for an agent discovery and identity model that remains open and interoperable
Infoblox and GoDaddy advocate for an agent discovery and identity model that remains open and interoperable, rather than reliant on proprietary protocols. This approach ensures agent deployers maintain control over identity and verifiability through open, cryptographically secure signals.
By building on the globally established DNS infrastructure, the initiatives take advantage of decades of operational expertise and resilience, thus reinforcing the capabilities and trustworthiness of AI agents.
The companies call on industry stakeholders, including cloud service providers, platform vendors, and registrars, to partake in the advancement of open standards. "We are calling on cloud providers, agent platform vendors, registrars, security companies and standards organisations to join us in open standards work," urged Wei Chen, underscoring the collective responsibility in shaping a future where AI agents can be reliably discovered and verified across a federated, distributed internet infrastructure.
Infoblox, a pioneer in hybrid, multi-cloud networking and pre-emptive security, and GoDaddy Inc., a pioneer in domain registration and internet infrastructure, announces support for complementary open standards designed to help AI agents identify, discover and verify one another across the open web.
Infoblox is advancing DNS for AI Discovery (DNS-AID), an open, interoperable approach for agent discovery built on existing Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure. GoDaddy is helping develop Agent Name Service (ANS), an open standard focused on agent identity, naming and verification using DNS and public key infrastructure (PKI). Both efforts are complementary and are being developed in community standards bodies with the explicit goal of enabling independent implementations and avoiding single- or concentrated-vendor control.
Open standard leverages
The companies share a belief that no single or small group of vendors, registries or platforms should control how AI agents are named, discovered or verified. As agents begin to act across websites, applications and enterprise environments, open standards will be essential to help people and systems know which agents they are interacting with and whether those agents are verified.
"Agents will only reach their full potential on the open web if people and systems can verify who they are interacting with," said Jared Sine, chief strategy and legal officer at GoDaddy. "Adopters of the Agent Name Service open standard leverages the only infrastructure that exists today that operates at the scale and speed of the global internet – Domain Name Service. We support Infoblox's work on DNS-AID and believe open standards for identity, discovery and verification will be critical as agents become part of everyday digital experiences."
Publish discoverable metadata
"The lesson we learned from the 1970s-1980s is simple: no single entity could or should run the phonebook of the internet for everyone," said Wei Chen, CLO, EVP, Regulatory Strategy at Infoblox. "DNS replaced it, not with another centralised list, but with an open, federated protocol that anyone could participate in. Forty years later, DNS remains the gold standard for digital trust and a scalable foundation where agents, Model Context Protocols, services and endpoints can be discovered and trusted through the same architecture that already powers the global economy."
DNS-AID is an open standard, currently advancing as an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft and open-source software, that defines how AI agents can publish discoverable metadata using existing DNS record types, including RFC 9460 Service Bindings (SVCB), DNS-SD service discovery, Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), and DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE). DNS-AID is not owned by any company; it is a community standard that any organisation, platform, registry or agent framework can implement.
AI agent identity
By advancing DNS-AID, Infoblox is helping establish a standards-based discovery layer for agents. GoDaddy supports the goal of open, DNS-based agent discovery and believes DNS-AID complements ANS by addressing a related but distinct need: helping agents and systems find the metadata needed to evaluate and connect with one another.
Agent Name Service is an open standard and implementation for AI agent identity, naming and verification, built on DNS and PKI. GoDaddy is a co-author of the ANS IETF draft and a significant contributor to its open-source implementation. ANS is designed to let agent operators use domain names they already own—without requiring a new registry or proprietary naming system. This helps make agents identifiable and addressable through the same established internet infrastructure that already supports websites and email.
Cryptographically verifiable signals
ANS is anchored on agent identity: giving agents unique names and the cryptographic proof to back them. DNS-AID focuses on agent discovery: defining how agents' capabilities and endpoints are published in DNS so other systems can find them. The two efforts share a DNS and PKI foundation and are being developed to fit alongside each other in DNS as complementary parts of an open agentic internet. Put simply: ANS answers who an agent is, and DNS-AID helps others find what it can do.
Infoblox and GoDaddy believe agent discovery and identity should be open and interoperable, not tied to proprietary protocols or closed registries. Agent deployers should retain control over their agents' identity, metadata, discoverability and policies, and trust decisions should be based on open, auditable, cryptographically verifiable signals rather than proprietary reputation scores controlled by a single vendor.
Extensible record format
DNS is already globally deployed, federated, extensible and supported by mature operational and security practices. Building agent identity and discovery on DNS means inheriting decades of operational experience, caching infrastructure, anycast resilience, governance process and an installed base that reaches every device on the internet. SVCB records provide an extensible record format that can support agent capabilities, endpoints and protocols.
Infoblox and GoDaddy recognise that it will take the industry to come together to define the future of the agentic internet. "We are calling on cloud providers, agent platform vendors, registrars, security companies and standards organisations to join us in open standards work,” continued Wei, “So that AI agents can be discovered and verified through open infrastructure that is fully federated and distributed and works for everyone.”
