What is PAP (Personal Agent Protocol)?
The Personal Agent Protocol (PAP) is an open standard announced in October 2026 by Meta and Sierra, with partners, for how personal AI agents interact with businesses. Its v0.1 specification is not published yet. ARC's Protocol Matrix labels PAP adoption Not measured. A missing marker is not a zero, and it is not a mark against a store.
What was announced
In October 2026, Meta and Sierra announced the Personal Agent Protocol, with partners, as an open standard for how a personal agent talks to a business. Sierra's announcement is at sierra.ai. The announcement is not an ARC measurement.
Who's involved
The announcement names partners. ARC does not audit that list and does not treat a named partner as a measured integration.
What we don't know yet
The v0.1 spec is not published. Without a spec, ARC cannot score conformance. Payments are described as a later extension, not something a store can switch on today.
What ARC is watching for
ARC saved checks, accessed 2026-10-13
Declared: Not measuredNot measuredLive watch only; not saved
Valid: Not measuredNot measuredNo published spec
Usable: Not measuredNot measuredNot checked
Transacts: Not measuredNot measuredNot checked
Store pages run a live watch for candidate discovery paths. Those watches are not saved into this matrix, so the count stays Not measured. A store with no marker is not failing.
How it relates to UCP and ACP
UCP and ACP are checkout and catalog protocols ARC can talk about with public files or, for ACP, an honest not-measured label. PAP is a personal-agent session protocol. They answer different questions. UCP counts are on What is UCP?.
Frequently asked questions
- What is PAP (Personal Agent Protocol)?
- The Personal Agent Protocol (PAP) is an open standard announced in October 2026 by Meta and Sierra, with partners, for how personal AI agents interact with businesses. Its v0.1 specification is not published yet. ARC's Protocol Matrix labels PAP adoption Not measured. A missing marker is not a zero, and it is not a mark against a store.
- Can stores adopt PAP today?
- The v0.1 spec isn't published yet.
- Does ARC track PAP?
- Yes. It watches for discovery markers and will report once there's something real to measure. Until then the matrix says Not measured, which is not zero.
On ARC
Cite this: ARC, arcreport.ai, accessed 2026-10-13, CC-BY-4.0. Protocol figures: ARC saved checks, accessed 2026-10-13 (13 October 2026). Index browser figures: ARC open dataset snapshot 2026-10-12. Platform figures: ARC saved checks, accessed 2026-10-13.
Every figure is labelled Measured, Inferred or Not measured. Not measured is not zero. A missing result is not a mark against a store. ARC stops before payment.