#257 Ankur Banerjee: How cheqd.io Is Building Trust for AI Agents with Decentralized Identity

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What if AI agents needed digital passports to act on your behalf?

In this episode, Ankur Banerjee, Co-Founder and CTO of cheqd.io, reveals how decentralized identity is becoming the foundation of the AI agent economy. 

From booking Taylor Swift tickets with an agent to proving you're a real person online, we explore why identity and trust are the hidden infrastructure shaping the future of AI.

Ankur explains how cheqd is building privacy-first tools that let AI agents verify who they are, what they can do, and who they're working for, all without handing over your data to big tech. We dig into the rise of digital credentials, the limits of biometrics, and how protocols like MCP are making the internet safe for autonomous agents.

If you've ever wondered how AI will operate on your behalf in the real world, this conversation offers a glimpse into what's coming next.

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(00:00) Why AI Needs Identity

(02:16) Ankur’s Path to cheqd

(05:39) Delegating Tasks to AI Agents

(11:26) Identity Lessons from Governments

(17:25) Trusting AI with Digital Credentials

(23:42) The Problem with Biometrics

(30:49) Web Standards for Agent Identity

(36:46) MCP and Agent Interoperability

(48:47) Bridging Web2 and Web3 Identity

(55:18) Why Companies Should Care About Decentralized ID