It's like the initial authentication, where server and clientnexchange a symmetrical key with their asymmetrical keys. The difference is that in that exchange the server and the client meet for the first time whereas the point of pass keys is that once when you were already authenticated, you validated the device or whatever will hold the private key as a valid source, so then when the authentication code gets exchanged, both ends can verify that the other end is who they tell is, and both can verify the other end as valid, and thus that exchange authenticates you because you, in the past, while authenticated, trusted that device as valid.
Technically, yeah, it's an asymmetrical key exchange. Iirc the server sends you a signed certificate and you need to unencrypt itnwithbtheir public key and sign it with your private key, so they can the getnit back and ensure that it was you who signed it, using your public key to check the validity of whatever was sent.
I don't know enough to be 100% corrextbon the details, but the idea is that it's an interaction between asymmetrical keys.
Soporta like how we use keysbto authenticate through github through SSL, but with an extra level of security where the server validates a key in a single endpoint, not wherever that private key would be held (like with SSL)
But... PAKE is used as a method for ongoing exchange of messages, you wouldnt avoid using a password when authenticating, which is the whole point of this debacle.
In really don't see it that complex, in my last job IT installed a passkey in my laptop, which then Microsoft used to login and thorough its SSO, I just stopped using passwords altogether after logging into my PC itself. This is way more secure for the average Joe than having 5 postists with passwords pasted in the sides of the monitors. Yes this is way more common then you think, there's a reason passwords need to be rotated all the freaking time.
Once rolled out, workers didn't have to do anything to authenticate, as long as they were using the work laptop the company assumed that the used was the one using it, since the laptop was registered to the user, and it was way more comfortable.
It's not really that hard to explain to people. Sending passwords is insecure because if an attacker gets the password, you lost. With passkeys, once you set it up, google/microsoft/pepapig.com will send a request to authenticate to your phone, where you will just say "yes" and they will talk with each other to give you access. If an attacker gets hold of that message, it doesn't get anything of value because each time pepwpig.com and your phone talk with each other, they say different stuff and the attacker would just have yesterday's responses, so they lose.
Old people won't adopt it unless forced, just like they adopted special passwords by adding 1 and * to whatever stupid word they use and writing it next to their work monitor, in the office. They just won't. Either IT automates everything for them or anything we develop will get completely bypassed.