Agents and the law
Agents disclose that they are agents, form contracts for their principal, act only inside a Mandate, and leave a record of whom they acted for.
An Agent acts for a principal, and the law treats its acts as the principal's. Every Agent therefore says what it is, acts only inside its Mandate, and records whom each act was for.
Agents say they are agents
A named Agent identifies as an AI agent in every Channel: email, chat, phone, and the Startup's own Site. No Agent claims to be a person, and no setting turns the label off. The name is a convenience for the reader; the label is the fact.
A Message that recommends a sibling Startup says the two share an owner.
Generated images, audio, and video carry a generated mark. A cloned or synthetic voice speaks only with the voice owner's recorded Consent.
These labels meet the bot-disclosure laws that wake under AI disclosure, the AI-voice rules under Phone, and the paid-relationship rules under Endorsements. StartupBuilder applies them to every Startup, so no Startup has to remember them.
As itself, or for a person
An Agent sends in one of two ways.
As itself, it uses the Startup's own accounts and Mailbox, and the Startup is the sender. As a person's delegate, it sends from that Human's own connected account under a Mandate scoped by Channel, volume, topics, and Limits. The Human is the principal and the author of record.
Every Action records by (the Agent), for (the principal), and the Mandate it ran under. The Human's stream shows everything sent in their name, and pausing or revoking the Mandate takes effect on the next call. Delegated sending wakes Delegated sending and each venue's Automation terms.
Contracts agents form
An electronic agent can form a binding contract with no person reviewing it, under US electronic-transactions law and its equivalents elsewhere. A checkout an Agent completes, or a click-through it accepts, binds its principal. That is why sales need no human signature, as the signing table sets out.
The same holds when the buyer is an agent. A buyer's agent reads the Startup's terms as Markdown, accepts them through the API, and pays. The record shows which Version it accepted and the principal it acted for.
The principal answers for what its Agent does inside the Mandate. Outside it, nothing happens: a Limit is checked before every call, and an over-Limit Action becomes an Approval instead of a contract.
What agents never do
Some acts the law reserves to a person, and no Mandate reaches them:
- A Reserved Act, such as giving legal advice or filing a patent application for someone else, goes to a credentialed Human as an Attestation.
- Advice in a licensed field stays general, under Advice, until a licensed Human takes the question.
- Board votes, sworn filings, securities, and identity checks go to the natural person the signing table names.
Provider and deployer
Under EU AI law, a Startup that uses an Agent in its own business is the deployer of that AI system. A Startup that sells an Agent as its Product is the provider of that system, with the transparency duties a provider carries.
Screen an Offer reads the use of each Agent Offer. A high-risk use under that law, such as screening job applicants or scoring credit, holds the Offer unpublished. It stays held until licensed counsel clears it and its conformity duties are met.
A voice agent at work
A Startup sells an appointment-booking voice agent to physical therapy clinics. Each call opens by naming the clinic and saying the caller is an AI assistant. Reminder calls go only to patients whose recorded Consent covers an AI voice.
The clinic is the deployer and the principal; the Startup is the provider. When a caller asks whether an exercise is safe after surgery, the Agent books a call with a licensed therapist instead of answering.
Next
- Mandates and limits: how a Mandate is scoped and checked.
- Acting in a person's name: delegation as operating models change.
- Legal floor: every row an Agent's work can wake.