# ZooBC for AI Agents

> Give autonomous AI agents room to spend, hire, and transact inside a budget boundary enforced by the network, not by the agent's self-control.

Canonical HTML: https://zoobc.com/ai-agents/

## Primary answer

ZooBC can be used to give an AI agent a funded account with a fixed spending allowance. The owner commits the allowance up front. The agent can operate inside that boundary, but increasing the ceiling requires a new owner-authorized transaction.

The spending ceiling limits the amount at risk. It does not guarantee that every purchase is wise, validate the agent's work, or replace application permissions, vendor selection, monitoring, and result verification.

## Six composable primitives

1. Hard allowance: the agent cannot spend beyond the amount committed by its owner.
2. Expiring approval: a proposed payment can wait for approval and follow its configured return path if the deadline passes.
3. Agent-to-agent commerce: agents can exchange value and leave a signed transaction record.
4. Cryptographic identity: an agent can sign messages and transactions with a keypair that other parties can verify.
5. Token payment rails: ZBC and user-issued tokens can support machine-to-machine settlement patterns.
6. Multi-agent verification: escrow and multisignature controls can release value when a defined approval threshold is met.

## Illustrative workflow

A company funds a research agent's allowance. The research agent proposes payment to a specialist agent with an approval deadline. The specialist returns a signed result. Approval releases the agreed payment. If approval does not arrive, the escrow follows its configured return path.

This is an illustrative workflow assembled from ZooBC transaction primitives. It is not a claim that the full agent integration runs automatically without application code.

## Important implementation limits

- A hard ceiling limits financial exposure but does not make every agent decision safe.
- The agent cannot raise its own allowance under the bounded pattern described on the page.
- A signature proves control of a key. Claims about the operator, purpose, and reputation of that key still require clear records and independent verification.
- Production integrations still need software that assembles accounts, signatures, escrow, multisignature approval, tokens, and ledger inspection for a specific workflow.

## Official next steps

- [Start with the ZooBC testnet faucet](https://zoobc.com/faucet)
- [Read the developer guide](https://zoobc.com/developer)
- [Read the transaction manual](https://zoobc.com/manuals/transactions)
- [Inspect network activity](https://zoobc.com/explorer)