Agent Identity: A Digital Employee ID for Email and Phone

What is an agent identity?

An agent identity is the way an AI agent is identified within a system. In Mailrun, it is a communication identity: a name, email address, phone number, and the access your integration uses to send and receive messages or handle calls.

The identity and the agent have different jobs. Mailrun provides the contact channels; your application supplies the model, instructions, business knowledge, and connected tools. You can replace the agent without replacing its Mailrun identity.

What does digital employee ID mean here?

A digital employee is an AI agent assigned a business role, such as answering customer questions or coordinating appointments. Its digital employee ID can mean an internal record or identifier. Its communication identity is what lets customers reach it: an address they can email and a number they can call.

Mailrun creates an identity record with an ID for API requests. That identifier is separate from the email address and phone number attached to the record. A record can exist before its channels finish provisioning, so your integration must check channel readiness before using them.

Explore email for digital employees

A stable point of contact

Imagine a scheduling agent introduced as sara@yourcompany.com with a dedicated business number. Customers save the address, suppliers reply to old threads, and teammates begin routing requests there. Six months later, the company moves the agent to a different model and rebuilds its orchestration. The public identity does not need to move with the implementation.

Mailrun provides the communication layer: email, phone, API access, and MCP tools. Your company controls the contact channels and decides which agent receives them. The agent itself—its model, runtime, prompts, knowledge, permissions, and business logic—remains yours.

What carries forward

The durable pieces are the company-controlled address and number, plus the routing you configure around them. That continuity matters when an agent has already appeared in signatures, customer records, call histories, and long-running conversations. People can keep using the contact information they know while your team changes what handles the work.

A model change does not automatically transfer memory, tools, conversation state, or permissions. Your team must deliberately move the context the replacement needs, reconnect its systems, and approve its actions. Mailrun keeps the communication identity stable while your team manages the handoff.

A controlled handoff

A practical migration starts with a narrow test: connect the replacement agent, replay representative email and call scenarios, confirm escalation paths, then change routing when the new system is ready. For live phone conversations, the agent connects through a webhook-based call flow. MCP can support surrounding workflows, but it is not the live voice connection by itself.

Access is coming soon. Request Access and work with our team on your integration when it opens. Customers will keep reaching the same identity while your company remains free to improve the agent behind it.