At a trendy venue near the San Francisco pier, Sam Altman\u2019s verification project<\/a> World<\/a> celebrated its next evolution and rapid expansion of its ambitions.\u00a0 And it\u2019s starting with Tinder.<\/p>\n Tools for Humanity<\/a> (TFH), the company behind the World project, announced Friday plans to integrate its verification tech into dating apps, event and concert ticketing systems, business organizations, email, and other arenas of public life.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world is getting close to very powerful AI, and this is doing a lot of wonderful things,\u201d said Altman, speaking before a packed crowd at The Midway. \u201cWe are also heading to a world now where there\u2019s going to be more stuff generated by AI than by humans,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m sure many of you [have had moments] where you\u2019re like, \u2018Am I interacting with an AI or a person, or how much of each, and how do I know?\u201d<\/p>\n World (formerly Worldcoin) distinguishes itself from many of its ID verification peers by offering the ability to verify that a real, living human is using a digital service while still protecting that person\u2019s anonymity. There is some complex cryptographic alchemy behind this (something called \u201czero-knowledge proof-based authentication\u201d). The upshot: The company is creating what it calls \u201cproof of human<\/a>\u201d tools, which are mechanisms that can verify human activity in a world rife with AI agents and bots.<\/p>\n Its chief tool for verification is a spherical digital reader called the Orb that scans a user\u2019s eyes, converting their iris into a unique and anonymous cryptographic identifier (known as a verified World ID). This can then be used to access World\u2019s services, although users can also access World\u2019s app without one.<\/p>\n Altman kept his remarks brief on Friday (TFH\u2019s co-founder and CEO, Alex Blania, was absent due to a last-minute hand surgery, Altman said). He then turned much of the presentation over to World\u2019s chief product officer, Tiago Sada, and his team.<\/p>\n Sada explained that World was launching the newest version of its app (the last version was launched<\/a> at an event in December), along with a plethora of new integrations for its technology.<\/p>\n World has been preparing, for some time, to deploy a verification service for dating apps \u2014 most notably, Tinder. Last year, Tinder launched a World ID pilot program<\/a> in Japan. That pilot was apparently a success because World announced that Tinder would be launching its verification integration in global markets \u2014including the U.S. The program integrates a World ID emblem into the profiles of users who have gone through its verification processes, thus authenticating them as a real person.<\/p>\n World is also courting the entertainment industry by launching a new feature called Concert Kit, where musical artists can reserve a certain number of concert tickets for World ID-verified humans. This is designed to ensure that fans are safe from scalpers who often use automated ticket-buying bots<\/a> to scarf up seats. Concert Kit is compatible with major ticketing systems, including Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, and the company is promoting it via partnerships with 30 Seconds to Mars and Bruno Mars \u2014 both of whom plan to use it for their upcoming tours.<\/p>\n The event was full of many other announcements, including some aimed at businesses. A Zoom\/World ID verification integration<\/a> seeks to battle a supposed deepfake threat to business calls, and a Docusign partnership is designed to ensure signatures come from authentic users.<\/p>\n The company is also working on a number of features in anticipation of the Wild West of the agentic web, including one called \u201cagent delegation,\u201d in which a person can delegate their World ID to an agent to carry out online activities on their behalf. A partnership with authentication firm Okta has also created a system (currently in beta)<\/a> that verifies that an agent is acting on behalf of a human. The system is set up so that a World ID can be tied to a specific agent and then, when the agent goes out into the web to operate on that person\u2019s behalf, websites will know a verified person is behind the behavior, said Okta\u2019s chief product officer, Gareth Davies, at the event.<\/p>\n So far, it\u2019s been difficult for World to scale<\/a>, due largely to the verification process itself. For much of the company\u2019s history, to get its gold standard, you had to travel to one of its offices and have your eyeballs scanned by an Orb \u2014 a fairly inconvenient (not to mention weird) experience.<\/p>\n However, World has continually made moves to increase the ease and incentive structure for verification. In the past, it offered its crypto asset<\/a>, Worldcoin, to some members who signed up and has distributed its Orbs into big retail chains<\/a> so that users can verify themselves while they\u2019re out shopping or getting a coffee. Now the company is announcing that it is significantly expanding its Orb saturation in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The company also promoted a service where interested users could have World bring an Orb to their location for remote verification.<\/p>\n In a conversation with TechCrunch, Sada also shared that World has attempted to solve the scaling problem by creating different tiers of verification. The highest tier is Orb verification, but below that, World has previously offered a mid-level tier, which uses an anonymized scan of an official government ID via the card\u2019s NFC chip. <\/p>\n The company also introduced a low-level tier, or what Sada called \u201clow friction\u201d\u2014 meaning low effort, I guess, but also \u201clow security\u201d \u2014 which involves merely taking a selfie.<\/p>\n Selfie Check, which Sada\u2019s team presented during the event, is designed to maintain user privacy.<\/p>\n \u201cSelfie is private by design,\u201d said Daniel Shorr, one of TFH\u2019s executives, during the presentation. \u201cThat means that we maximize the local processing that\u2019s happening on your device, on your phone, which means that your images are yours.\u201d<\/p>\n Selfie verification obviously isn\u2019t new, and fraudsters have long managed to spoof it<\/a>. \u201cObviously, we do our best, and it\u2019s like one of the best systems that you\u2019ll see for this. But it has limits,\u201d Sada told TechCrunch. Developers looking to integrate World\u2019s services can choose from the three different verification tiers depending on the level of security that\u2019s important to them, he noted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-17-at-1.55.00-PM.png?w=680\")
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