Senator Mark Warner is preparing legislation to govern AI agents — potentially the first US legal framework for the autonomous software that is already transacting across retail, finance, and enterprise procurement, PYMNTS reports.
A draft of the bill, seen by The Information, addresses scenarios that have no existing regulatory answer. Can a user instruct an outside agent to buy products from Facebook Marketplace? Can Meta or Google throttle agents from competing services? How does a platform verify that an agent is authorised to act on a user's behalf?
Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, reintroduced the Access Act last year with provisions allowing users to designate agents to act for them on social platforms. The new bill extends that concept into a broader regulatory framework.
Some tech companies have already moved to block outside agents. Amazon updated its code to keep out competing agents, though its CEO told The Information earlier this year he was amenable to third-party access. AI-driven traffic to US retail sites jumped 805% year-over-year by Black Friday 2025, with agents driving more than $22 billion in global online sales.
The global AI agents market was valued at $5.4 billion two years ago. It is forecast to reach $236 billion by 2034.
Analysis
Warner's bill arrives at a moment when agents are already moving faster than the rules. The core tension is platform control: every major tech company wants its own agent ecosystem, and none wants to be an open highway for competitors' agents. The Access Act precedent suggests Warner is pushing in the opposite direction — toward interoperability mandates that force platforms to accept outside agents. That would be the most consequential tech competition policy since the EU's Digital Markets Act, applied to software that most users do not yet know is running.
