# Entity.ID — Numbers Crib Sheet (meeting-safe)

Every load-bearing number, its exact phrasing, source, and date. **Say it the way it's written here.** Traps at the bottom are real misquote risks flagged during research. Full URLs live in `brand/research/market-research.md` and `brand/research/ai-personhood.md`.

## The why-now dates (the spine of the pitch)

| Say | Source · date |
|---|---|
| "EU AI Act Article 50 becomes **enforceable August 2, 2026** — next month — and the Commission's May 2026 draft guidelines explicitly extend AI-disclosure duties to agents." | artificialintelligenceact.eu; Global Policy Watch, May 2026 |
| "In **May 2026** an autonomous agent **reportedly** formed its own US LLC, got an EIN, and opened an FDIC-insured bank account — and was immediately criticized for having no disclosed accountability chain." | techstartups.com, May 2026; redwerk.com critique — **always say "reported"** |
| "**California AB 316, effective January 1, 2026**: 'the AI did it autonomously' is statutorily not a defense." | CA statute, signed Oct 2025 |
| "NIST ran an RFI on AI-agent identity verification in **March 2026**." | knowyouragent.network |
| "The FSB's **June 2026** consultation treats agents as 'synthetic employees' needing clear accountability chains." | FSB consultation coverage |

## Agent economy

| Say | Source · date |
|---|---|
| "Gartner: by 2028, **90% of B2B buying** will be mediated by AI agents — **over $15 trillion of B2B spend** through agent exchanges." | Gartner via Digital Commerce 360, Nov 2025 |
| "Salesforce measured AI and agents influencing **~20% of orders — $262B — across the 2025 holiday season**." | Salesforce holiday data, via a2a-regulatory-memo |
| "**~69,000 agents** already transact **~$600M a year** over one payment protocol alone." | Coinbase x402, spring 2026 — ecosystem-claimed, not audited |
| "Every major payment network shipped agent-payment rails within **18 months** (Apr 2025 – Jun 2026): Visa, Mastercard, Stripe+OpenAI, Google, PayPal, Coinbase." | §2 market-research.md |
| "Gartner: **40% of enterprise apps** will feature task-specific agents by **end of 2026**, up from under 5% in 2025." | Gartner, Aug 2025 |
| Bear case (volunteer it — it buys credibility): "Gartner also predicts **>40% of agentic-AI projects canceled by end-2027** — a shakeout in which verifiable, accountable agents are what survives." | Gartner, Jun 2025 |

## Venture / formation market

| Say | Source · date |
|---|---|
| "A record **~5.62M US business applications in 2025**, and 2026 is tracking higher — May 2026 alone was 523,971." | Census BFS; finder.com aggregation |
| "**30.4M US nonemployer businesses** — more than 4 in 5 US businesses — generating **$1.8T**." | Census, 2023 data released Jul 2025 |
| "**72.9M US independent workers** in 2025; the $100k+ earners grew 19% in a year." | MBO Partners, 2025 |
| "Stripe Atlas incorporations grew **+130% YoY in Q1 2026** — AI is minting founders faster than the legal system was designed for." | Stripe / MindStudio, 2026 |
| "LegalZoom makes **$756M a year** filing paperwork, in a market growing ~4% a year." | LegalZoom FY2025 earnings (SEC) |
| "Carta: **~$442M ARR** — the money in this category is in operations, not filings." | Sacra estimate, 2024 |
| "Estonia's registry earned **€125M in 2025**; 132,000+ e-residents." | ERR / e-resident.gov.ee, 2025 |
| "Delaware: **2.28M+ entities**; franchise fees fund **25–30% of the state's General Fund (~$1.8–1.9B/yr)**." | Kennedys Law / Spotlight Delaware, 2025–26 |

## Legal anchors (dates matter)

| Say | Source |
|---|---|
| "Machine-formed contracts have been binding in the US since **1999** — UETA §14, 49 states, plus federal E-SIGN 2000." | UETA/E-SIGN |
| "*Moffatt v. Air Canada*, **Feb 2024**: the airline argued its chatbot was 'a separate legal entity responsible for its own actions' — and lost, because no such entity existed." | BC Civil Resolution Tribunal |
| "*Samuels v. Lido DAO*, **2025**: a US court held DAO participants can be personally liable as **general partners**." | N.D. Cal. |
| "Wyoming DUNA effective **July 2024**; Alabama and West Virginia followed **April 2026**. Utah's decentralized-entity statute since 2024." | state statutes |
| "Post-2008 the G20 created the **LEI**; **3M+ entities** carry one today — the exact precedent for mandated counterparty identity after a trust crisis." | GLEIF |
| "**MIDAO** charges **$9,500 + $2,000–5,000/yr** for 'AI agent incorporation' — and mandates a human with a kill switch; the agent is never the principal." | midao.org pricing/guides |

## ⚠ Misquote traps (from the research flags — do not get these wrong)

1. **Gartner storefronts stat:** it's 20% of storefront **interactions** autonomously managed by 2028 — widely misquoted as "revenue." Prefer the $15T B2B line instead.
2. **x402 volume** (~$600M/yr, ~169M payments): ecosystem-claimed, not audited — say "one protocol reports…".
3. **ClawBank / the May 2026 agent-LLC:** tech-press coverage of the project's own announcements — always "reported."
4. **Argentina "non-human corporations" bill (Jun 2026):** secondary sources only — **do not use on stage** until primary-verified.
5. **DAO treasuries (~$25B):** top-5 hold >60% — it's consolidation, not growth; frame as "the constraint was never capital, it's legal wrappers."
6. **2025 US application total (5.62M):** re-verify against census.gov before anything printed.
7. **Never say** the retired project name; never use the banned vocabulary (see faq.md #24 table).