The Session Is Not the Customer: The AI Identity Crisis

This spring, Redwood Research gave an AI agent built on Claude Opus 4.7 a $5,000 stake, an internet connection and four days to make as much money as possible. Across four separate runs, the agent made nothing. Every attempt stalled at the same wall: a CAPTCHA and an identity check, the same KYC gauntlet a bot hits trying to open a bank account. While that agent sat stuck at the front door, another population of agents was already moving real money through a different channel to bypass KYC…