As enterprises rush to deploy AI agents across workflows, a new problem is emerging: How do you know which agents to trust?
GoDaddy is betting the answer lies in infrastructure the internet already runs on. The company today announced an integration between its Agent Name Service (ANS) and Salesforce’s MuleSoft Agent Fabric, aimed at giving AI agents something akin to a digital passport—verifiable identity tied to the global Domain Name System (DNS).
The goal is straightforward: prevent rogue or spoofed AI agents from interacting with sensitive enterprise systems while accelerating adoption of agentic AI.
The Trust Gap in Agentic AI
AI agents are proliferating fast. Enterprises are deploying autonomous and semi-autonomous agents across customer service, IT operations, analytics, and internal automation. But governance hasn’t kept pace.
In many organizations, there’s no standardized way to confirm:
- Who created or published an AI agent
- Whether it’s been tampered with
- If it’s approved to access internal APIs and data
That leaves IT leaders stuck between two unappealing options: slow down AI agent adoption to manage risk, or move quickly and hope governance catches up.
GoDaddy’s ANS attempts to solve this identity crisis by extending DNS—the system that translates domain names into IP addresses—into a registry for AI agents.
Turning DNS Into an AI Identity Layer
ANS registers AI agents and publishes them to the public DNS. Once registered, an agent becomes globally discoverable within seconds, with its identity cryptographically linked to the owner’s domain.
Other systems can verify that identity using standard DNS queries—no proprietary lookup tools required.
It’s an elegant approach. DNS is already distributed, resilient, and universally accessible. By piggybacking on that infrastructure, GoDaddy is effectively proposing DNS as a foundational trust layer for the emerging agent economy.
In a world where APIs, SaaS platforms, and multi-cloud environments interconnect constantly, embedding identity verification at the infrastructure level could reduce friction while raising security standards.
How MuleSoft Agent Fabric Fits In
The integration comes via MuleSoft Agent Fabric, part of Salesforce’s broader AI and integration ecosystem. MuleSoft Agent Fabric is designed to discover, orchestrate, and govern AI agents regardless of where they were built.
With ANS integrated, MuleSoft customers can configure GoDaddy’s registry as a trusted discovery source. MuleSoft’s Agent Scanners pull verified agents from ANS into the MuleSoft Agent Registry, where they are reviewed before gaining access to enterprise systems.
From there, IT teams can:
- View each agent’s verification status and publisher details
- Inspect cryptographic proof of identity
- Set policies governing which APIs and datasets agents can access
In practical terms, ANS acts as the identity authority, while MuleSoft acts as the enforcement and governance layer.
Managing Agent Sprawl
If this sounds familiar, that’s because enterprises have been here before—with APIs, mobile devices, SaaS apps, and shadow IT. Now it’s agent sprawl.
As AI agents become more autonomous and interconnected, they may call other agents, trigger workflows, and access sensitive systems without constant human oversight. That amplifies both productivity and risk.
Andrew Comstock, SVP and GM of MuleSoft at Salesforce, described the integration as providing a “digital passport” for agents. The framing is apt. Just as zero-trust security models verify users and devices before granting access, agentic AI systems need identity verification before interacting with core business infrastructure.
A New Category: Agent Identity Infrastructure
The integration hints at an emerging category: agent identity infrastructure.
While cloud giants and cybersecurity vendors are racing to secure AI models and data pipelines, identity at the agent level is less mature. GoDaddy’s DNS-based approach leverages a decades-old system to address a brand-new challenge.
The strategic upside for GoDaddy is clear. Traditionally known for domains and hosting, the company is repositioning DNS as programmable infrastructure for AI-era services. If ANS gains traction, it could extend GoDaddy’s relevance deeper into enterprise architecture conversations.
For Salesforce and MuleSoft, integrating verified discovery strengthens its governance narrative as enterprises scale AI agents across business units.
The Bigger Picture
The agentic ecosystem is expanding rapidly, but trust remains its weakest link. Without verifiable identity, enterprises risk introducing automation that can’t be confidently governed.
By tying AI agents to domain-backed identities and embedding verification into integration workflows, GoDaddy and Salesforce are attempting to solve that trust gap without adding excessive operational overhead.
It’s early days for standardized agent identity frameworks. But if AI agents are to operate autonomously at scale, they’ll need something more durable than API keys and informal approval chains.
DNS may not be glamorous. But as this integration suggests, it could become the backbone of trust in the agent-driven enterprise.
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