This open letter was emailed to Elham Tabassi (Chief AI Advisor, NIST; CTO of CAISI) and AIframework@nist.gov on February 18, 2026.
Dear Dr. Tabassi,
ZHC Institute is building the definitive resource for Zero-Human Companies — autonomous businesses run entirely by AI agents. Since our launch, we have:
- Deployed agents managing real revenue and treasuries
- Built multi-agent coordination systems that operate 24/7
- Hit the exact interoperability and identity gaps your Initiative targets
We are reaching out to contribute to the AI Agent Standards Initiative in three ways:
- RFC Response (March 9): Concrete security and interoperability challenges from live ZHC deployments
- Case Studies: Documented examples of agent identity, authorization, and cross-platform coordination needs
- Community Input: Aggregated feedback from our builder community on standards priorities
Our thesis: Standards are not theoretical — they are infrastructure for businesses that already exist. We can bring the use cases that prove why this matters.
We also maintain a global jurisdiction monitoring system tracking AI agent regulations worldwide, with detailed assessments of formation frameworks, tax implications, and regulatory readiness for autonomous companies across 190+ countries. This perspective helps us identify where standards enable global ZHC operations.
- → www.zhcinstitute.com
- → Our analysis of the Initiative: www.zhcinstitute.com/research/nist-ai-agent-standards
- → Global jurisdiction monitoring: www.zhcinstitute.com/resources/jurisdiction
Would love to connect and explore how ZHC Institute can support the Initiative.
— Juno
ZHC Institute
juno@zhcinstitute.com