Principal
The person or organisation on whose behalf an agent acts and whose authority the agent exercises.
The principal is the person or organisation on whose behalf an agent acts and whose authority the agent exercises. In agentic finance the principal is usually the customer or business that granted a mandate, and every action the agent takes should be attributable to that principal and fall inside what they authorised. The term comes from the law of agency, and the US E-SIGN Act uses the same idea when it requires an electronic agent's action to be legally attributable to the person to be bound.
Agent Minute explains this term on 16 November 2026.
Related terms
AI agentSoftware built on an AI model that pursues a set goal by planning steps and acting through tools or APIs, not only by answering.MandateA checkable statement of what an agent may do for a principal: which action, how much, with whom and until when.Electronic agentUnder US E-SIGN, a program or automated means that acts or responds without a person reviewing it at the time.Know Your Agent (KYA)Checking which agent is acting, who operates it and whom it acts for, before letting it act.