Ayra Community,

TL;DR:

• All-Member meeting next week (members only)
• CAWG, Summit on Human Agency, was a major event

Ayra Community,

We are at the point where the work becomes real.

The conversations we’ve been having — about trust registries, agentic AI, conformance, and governance — are no longer theoretical. Members are running pilots. TRQP is moving toward formal standard status. The Conformance Test Suite is producing results with member stacks. And NIST is now asking the broader community to weigh in on exactly the territory we’ve been building in.

This month, we’re holding our All-Member Meeting instead of regular office hours. I’ll share the State of Ayra — what we delivered in Q4 and Q1 — and members will get an early look at our first Agentic Trust paper before it goes public. If you’ve been wondering where all this work is heading, this is the meeting to attend.

A few things need your attention before then. Swiss member agreements are circulating. Please do your best to get these signed, and returned.

And if your organization has a use case where cross-boundary trust is a bottleneck, reach out to Maxwell. Pilots are open, and the process is straightforward.

See you on the 17th or 18th.

Cheers,

Darrell O’Donnell

Executive Director

darrell.odonnell@ayra.forum

Workstream Updates

📇 Business Workstream

👩🏽‍✈️Pilot Projects

We are currently working with several members to design pilot projects that test digital trust infrastructure in their specific operational contexts. Each pilot is a bounded 6-9 month engagement that measures real results across three business levers: revenue growth, cost reduction, and compliance improvement.

The process starts with a 90-minute scoping session where we define the use case, establish baseline measurements, and agree on success metrics. From there, Ayra provides coordination and advisory on a cost-recovery basis — your team (or your integrator) builds, Ayra ensures interoperability and neutral governance across participants.

Pilots are designed to answer a concrete question with real data, not projections. At the end, you have measured outcomes and a clear decision: scale, expand, pivot, or walk away.

If your organization has a use case where cross-boundary trust verification is a bottleneck — whether in workforce credentials, supply chain compliance, customer onboarding, or another domain — we would like to hear from you. Contact Maxwell (maxwell.baylin@ayra.forum) to start the conversation.

⛰️Summit on Human Agency (SOHA)

Ayra was at the LF Summit on Human Agency (SOHA), alongside several of our members – big thanks to Glenn Gore and Adam Larter of Affinidi; Billy Grieco of Pearson; and Andrew Hughes of FaceTec, for carrying a compelling message. 

SOHA deals with the impacts of AI – particularly how it can build and/or erode our agency – our ability to control and influence things. It was an obvious place for Ayra

The SOHA event had a packed and fast-moving agenda. Some highlights here where Ayra members features (they were everywhere):

• Keynote – Building the Internet of Trust at Scale: Glenn Gore, CEO of Affinidi (Ayra Strategic Member), presented his thoughts on how we need new paradigms that include the human in a user-centric model.
• Human-binding and the Last-Mile of Proving Personhood: Andrew Hughes, VP of Global Standards (Ayra Associate Member) helped understand how important person-binding is to knowing who you are actually working with. Device-binding has been a focus for many standards – but that only means you know which device (e.g. smartphone) is in use, NOT who is using it.
• Tales of Internet Governance, Standards, and Law: Wendy Seltzer (Governance Advisor) was interviewed by Daniella Barbosa (ED of LFDT). Wendy’s depth of experience in establishing governance is legendary.
• Human Agency for Enterprise AI – Adam Larter, CTO of Affinidi, presented a trust-anchoring approach to connecting us with agents – and agents with agents (and it featured his cats).
• The Human Stack – Ayra participated in a session that leaned heavily into the technical (DIDs, VCs, and ZKPs). Darrell provided the counterpoint that without the business and governance pairing, the technology is, on its own, insufficient. This blend of business, governance, and technology is what creates the value.
• Business Use Cases: Health, Education, Finance – Billy Grieco of Pearson (Ayra Strategic Member)  presented a compelling case of where the business value is in sharing authentic information and how AI is changing the field. Maxwell Baylin (Strategy and Operations at Ayra) was the moderator and pulled out some strong insights – including that most business cases have similar patterns.

🎨 CAWG

Ayra has been working with the Creator Assertions Working Group. The Creator Assertions Working Group (CAWG) is an open standards body focused on a specific but critical problem: how do you prove — verifiably — who made a piece of digital content? Building on the foundational work of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), CAWG defines technical specifications that allow individuals and organizations to assert attribution of digital content while supporting both privacy and transparency.

The CAWG members that are most engaged with Ayra are the nonprofits that work with the creators, and the organizations involved in the process, and the digital assets that are created. This combination of people, organizations, and things is proving out the need for Ayra – and many CAWG members are looking to Ayra for guidance and leadership. They already have the governance and operations running. 

🗣️NIST Seeks Public Comment on AI Agent Identity and Authorization — Ayra Members Invited to Contribute

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published a concept paper on applying identity standards to AI agents, and is seeking stakeholder input through April 2nd, 2026. The paper, Accelerating the Adoption of Software and AI Agent Identity and Authorization, focuses on how identification, authentication, and authorization principles can be applied to agentic architectures — exactly the territory where Ayra’s coordination infrastructure operates.

NIST is considering a demonstration project at the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) and is asking stakeholders to weigh in on use cases, standards applicability (OAuth 2.0/2.1, OIDC, MCP, SPIFFE/SPIRE, and others), and the practical challenges of governing AI agents in enterprise environments. Their questions span agent identification, delegation of authority, human-in-the-loop authorization, logging and transparency, and prompt injection mitigation.

This is directly relevant to Ayra’s work. Our position has always been that cryptography can prove identity, but governance must prove authorization and alignment. NIST is now asking the community to help define how that governance layer should work for AI agents — and Ayra members have practical experience and informed perspectives to contribute.

We will be coordinating an Ayra response through the Ayra Protocol Working Group (APWG). If you would like to contribute to a collective submission, or if your organization plans to submit independently and would like to align with the broader Ayra community perspective, please contact the APWG Chair, Darrell O’Donnell, at darrell.odonnell@ayra.forum.

Comments can also be submitted individually to AI-Identity@nist.gov by April 2nd, 2026.

🗓 All-Member Meeting — March 17 & 18

This month, instead of our usual Technical Office Hours, we’re holding an All-Member Meeting in two regional sessions on March 17 and 18. The theme, “From Protocol to Proof,” will highlight what our community has accomplished, featuring live member showcases and an exclusive preview of new research before it’s released to the public.

​Darrell will share the State of Ayra, reviewing what was delivered in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. After that, we’ll have member showcases and a strategic talk about our next steps. Each session will highlight a different regional showcase:

• Session A: March 17 • 6:00 pm PST / 9:00 pm EST / 1:00 am UTC
• Session B: March 18 • 8:00 am PST / 11:00 am EST / 3:00 pm UTC

Both sessions will also offer members an exclusive first look at Paper 1 of the Agentic Trust Paper Series before it’s publicly released. 

Each session lasts 75 minutes and is for members only. Zoom links and pre-reading materials will be sent ahead of time.

Upcoming Business Office Hours:

• Tuesday, March 31 • 6:00 pm PST / 9:00 pm EST / 1:00 am UTC
• Wednesday, April 1 • 8:00 am PST / 11:00 am EST / 3:00 pm UTC

⚖️ Governance Workstream

🙏 Thank You to Our Members

A sincere thank you to everyone who has already signed or renewed their transfer (or new) membership agreement. Your commitment is what makes this community real, and it means a great deal to the entire Ayra team.

If you haven’t yet signed your member agreement or are unsure of your status, please reach out to christine.martin@ayra.forum.

🛠️ Technical Workstream

🤖 Agentic Trust Paper Series — Paper 1 Coming Soon

Ayra is about to release the first paper in a series on agentic AI trust. Paper 1, titled The Authenticated Pipe, is almost ready, and members will get early access before it goes public.

The main argument is that AI agents will operate at machine speed, but today’s infrastructure lacks a trust layer. Without authenticated transport, agent-to-agent communication can’t be verified—what the paper calls “perfectly signed lies at machine speed.” DIDComm and Verifiable Credentials offer the trusted connection the industry needs, and the open infrastructure community already has the key components. There’s a 12 to 18 month window to build this before proprietary platforms take over.

Papers 2 through 4 will come out in the second quarter. Look out for your exclusive member preview during the All-Member Meeting on March 17 and 18.

⚙️TRQP — Moving Toward Formal Standard

The Trust Registry Query Protocol (TRQP) continues to advance to formal specification status with global recognition. A Review Committee has been created and will be going through the final checks that Trust Over IP requires. This is a significant milestone for the community and for the broader digital trust ecosystem. 

🧪Conformance Test Suite — Real Progress, Real Findings

We have been meeting with multiple members to test their tech stack against the Ayra Conformance Test Suite (CTS). Results so far have been quite positive – both in how the CTS provides deterministic results and answers about where incompatibilities lie.  Holder, Verifier, and Trust Registry profiles are all working with the Ayra Protocol. Interest is growing in the next stage for the Conformance Test Suite, moving towards creating a full Trustmark program for our industry.

The Ayra Trustmark effort will begin later this year. Several members have volunteered to help lead key aspects of that work. 

Upcoming Technical Office Hours:

• Tuesday, April 14 • 6:00 pm PST / 9:00 pm EST / 1:00 am UTC
• Wednesday, April 15 • 8:00 am PST / 11:00 am EST / 3:00 pm UTC

⏰ Office Hours

We encourage you to participate, bring questions, and share feedback by either filling out this form or requesting access to the agenda items and notes document (link) and adding an entry for the relevant date.  You can also reach out to christine.martin@ayra.forum.

These conversations play a key role in shaping alignment across the technical workstream and supporting a collaborative, inclusive engineering culture within Ayra. As always, strengthening member connections is central to our community-building efforts. Standing office hours are available each week, and you can find all upcoming sessions in the Ayra Activity & Events Calendar. 

Events & Sessions

🗽 New York Member Drop-In — March 12

If you’re in New York, join Maxwell Baylin for an informal member drop-in session on Thursday, March 12 at CitizenM Bowery (189 Bowery, New York, 10002) from 4:00 – 6:00 pm. This is a relaxed, open-format gathering, a great chance to connect in person during Maxwell’s New York trip. 

👥 Engaging with Ayra

If you have not yet subscribed to the Ayra Activity and Events Calendar, you can do so here. Please note that most activities at this point are Member-only and will require your registration to be approved.

We are reaching out to Members for one-on-one conversations and hope you can take some time to share any feedback and raise any questions. We look forward to engaging in discussions and thank our Members for their commitment to supporting Ayra on its journey. Please feel free to reach out to us directly at any time.

If you’re a Member and haven’t checked out the Member Portal yet, we recommend that you do so. If you haven’t seen your invite, reach out to christine.martin@ayra.forum. 

If you are part of an organization that would like to apply for Ayra Membership, we invite you to reach out – on the web, or email us at memberships@ayra.forum.