AI agents are now moving money, approving loans and negotiating contracts on behalf of companies and almost nobody can prove what they did or why. A Nigerian AI engineer has just filed a patent to change that, putting African expertise at the center of an emerging global governance standard.
Rume Dominic filed the application with the UK Intellectual Property Office for Know Your Agentic AI, or KYA, a framework designed to make autonomous AI agents provable, auditable and accountable.
The filing, Application No. GB2611754.9, comes as businesses in Africa and Europe increasingly rely on AI systems to execute transactions, negotiate contracts, approve loans, and interact with customers, carrying significant financial and legal implications.
The gap KYA is built to close, according to Dominic, is stark, most companies cannot currently prove what their AI agents did, why they did it or who bears responsibility when something goes wrong.
“Banking solved this decades ago with KYC,” Dominic said. “No serious institution moves money for an identity it cannot verify. Yet we’re deploying AI agents that move money and make decisions with no equivalent standard. KYA exists so every agent action is provable, every decision is auditable, and accountability is designed in not bolted on after the damage.”
The framework takes its name from Know Your Customer protocols, the identity verification standard for banking compliance, signaling that agentic AI should be regulated similarly to the infrastructure adopted by financial services decades ago.
Dominic is a technologist from Warri, Delta State and founder of VOREM, a technology company launched in 2017.
He holds a BEng in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Covenant University and is completing an MSc in Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy at Aston University in Birmingham, UK, where he is now based.
He is an executive member of the Stakeholders in Blockchain Association of Nigeria, appears as a markets and technology commentator on Channels TV and Plus TV Africa and was ranked among the 100 Most Influential Young Deltans for advancing blockchain and AI adoption in Africa.
He has authored or co-authored five books, including “From Code to Consciousness,” stocked at Waterstones UK.
KYA goes beyond a filed patent, offering fixed-scope audits of AI agents, ongoing compliance assurance retainers and licensing for companies using autonomous agents at scale.
This suite helps organizations harness the productivity of autonomous AI while addressing governance risks associated with unmonitored decision-making.
Dominic has presented the KYA thesis on UK stages including FrontierTechX Birmingham, addressing the shift from “AI as a tool” to “AI as a strategic autonomous agent.”
Alongside the enterprise work, Dominic has focused on building the talent base needed to build and audit these systems within Africa.
Through the VOREM Institute of Technology, his free program Master AI in 9 Days has registered more than 2,900 learners and reached over 12,000 individuals.
A partnership with Iconic International Holdings, led by Amb. Dr. Temisan O. Louis, positions VOREM as the technology and curriculum engine behind a pan-African push to equip young Africans with practical AI skills, while a separate campaign with recording artist Mena Obrike extended free tech scholarships to participants across Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Uganda.
“The agentic AI wave is not waiting for Africa to be ready,” Dominic said. “Either we train our people to build and audit these systems, or we import both the technology and the accountability standards from elsewhere. I know which future I’m working for.”
The UK patent filing signals where the industry is heading: regulation-grade standards for autonomous AI, mirroring how financial services standardized identity verification through KYC decades ago.
African enterprises are adopting AI agents before formal regulations, especially in fintech and digital services. Frameworks like KYA enable quick scaling while maintaining an audit trail.
And for Africa’s broader tech ecosystem, it carries weight beyond its technical function, proving that homegrown talent isn’t waiting to adopt global AI governance standards, it’s helping set them.
