Google Donates Agent2Agent Protocol to Linux Foundation, Advancing AI Interoperability

Google's Agent2Agent project moves to Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the new home of the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol, an open protocol developed by Google to enable agentic AI interoperability and trusted agent communication across systems and platforms. Launched by Google in April, the A2A protocol addresses the need for agents to operate in dynamic, multi-agent environments. A2A enables autonomous agents to discover one another, exchange information securely, and collaborate across systems, which in turn allows developers to unite agents from multiple sources and platforms, improving modularity, mitigating vendor lock-in, and accelerating innovation, the Linux Foundation said in a June 23 announcement. Developers can go to the A2A repository on GitHub to learn more about the protocol and follow the progress of the project. The A2A project is being formed with participation from Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, and ServiceNow, Google said in a blog post, also dated June 23. Under Linux Foundation governance, A2A will remain vendor-neutral, emphasize inclusive contributions, and continue the protocol's focus on extensibility, security, and real-world usability, the Linux Foundation said. "By joining the Linux Foundation, A2A is ensuring the long-term neutrality, collaboration, and governance that will unlock the next era of agent-to-agent powered productivity," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.

Google Cloud donates A2A AI protocol to the Linux Foundation

Google Cloud has donated its Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol to the Linux Foundation, which has now announced a new community-driven project called the Agent2Agent Project. A2A was originally developed by Google Cloud as a protocol specification, SDK, and tooling set that made communication between AI agents possible. The protocol allows AI agents from different vendors to discover each other, share capabilities and context, and securely collaborate on complex tasks. AI agents are AI-powered tools like chatbots, coding aids, autonomous agents, etc. With the AI ecosystem evolving rapidly and more agents sprouting from different sources, the need for interoperability and seamless cross-service automation becomes critical. This is why Google developed A2A and was soon joined by big tech players leading the agentic AI proliferation in the enterprise, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Salesforce, Cisco, SAP, and ServiceNow. However, to avoid fragmentation in the space, with competing companies building separate protocols, Google Cloud has decided to hand off A2A to the Linux Foundation, making it more likely to be trusted and more widely adopted. "The formation of the Agent2Agent project under the neutral governance of the Linux Foundation will ensure that this critical component remains vendor-agnostic and community-driven," reads Google's announcement. "This move is designed to accelerate the adoption and development of the A2A protocol by providing a robust framework for open collaboration, intellectual property management, and long-term stewardship." The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit organization that hosts and supports open-source projects such as Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, PyTorch, and RISC-V. The organization provides neutral governance, legal, operational, and technical support, and the infrastructure required for collaboration, trust, and longevity. A2A is now a formal Linux Foundation project with its own GitHub and community, and Google's original spec, SDKs, and tooling have been transferred to the organization. This was officially announced during the Open Source Summit North America, where the Linux Foundation made its first call for developers, researchers, and companies to contribute to A2A. Right now, there are over a hundred companies that support A2A, and the Linux Foundation is expected to coordinate their contribution and testing efforts to the benefit of the protocol, as well as to align implementations as needed. The organization stated it will focus on real-world use, prioritizing security, extensibility, and enterprise usability, ensuring A2A can scale to actual cross-platform AI deployments. "Under the Linux Foundation's governance, A2A will remain vendor-neutral, emphasize inclusive contributions, and continue the protocol's focus on extensibility, security, and real-world usability across industries," announced the Linux Foundation. While this development has no immediate impact on users of consumer AI, it lays the ground for the next generation of AI products, potentially enabling smarter, more seamless, and more practical AI experiences.

Google Hands Over Agent2Agent AI Protocol to the Linux Foundation | AIM

Agent2Agent protocol has a new home that allows it to be vendor-agnostic and enables collaborative work. The Linux Foundation announced the launch of the Agent2Agent (A2A) project on Monday at the Open Source Summit North America. It is a major step toward building open standards for interoperable AI agents. Originally developed by Google, the A2A protocol is now being donated to The Linux Foundation to ensure vendor-neutral governance and broader industry collaboration. The A2A protocol enables AI agents to securely discover, communicate, and collaborate across different platforms, frameworks, and vendors. Google introduced the technology in April. A2A has since gained backing from over 100 organisations, including AWS, Cisco, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, and ServiceNow. The protocol addresses the growing need for agents to work together across dynamic environments and infrastructure. "We are happy to be the new home of the Agent2Agent Protocol project," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation. "By joining the Linux Foundation, A2A is ensuring the long-term neutrality, collaboration and governance that will unlock the next era of agent-to-agent powered productivity." The protocol comes with a full set of SDKs and tooling to help developers build cross-compatible agents and avoid vendor lock-in. Rao Surapaneni, vice president and GM of business applications platform at Google Cloud, emphasised that the Agent2Agent protocol is crucial for establishing an open communication standard. This standard allows the industry to develop AI agents that can truly work together across various platforms and systems. "By collaborating with the Linux Foundation and leading technology providers, we will enable more innovative and valuable AI capabilities under a trusted, open-governance framework." stated Surapaneni. The A2A project, hosted under the Linux Foundation, will focus on extensibility, security, and real-world usability. The long-term vision includes developing complementary standards for agent identity, delegation, security, and reputation. By contributing A2A to an open ecosystem, Google and its partners hope to accelerate enterprise adoption of intelligent agentic systems. Developers and organisations can participate via the A2A GitHub page.

Google donates the Agent2Agent Protocol to the Linux Foundation - SiliconANGLE

Google donates the Agent2Agent Protocol to the Linux Foundation Google LLC's cloud unit has donated the Agent2Agent Protocol, a technology that facilitates interactions between artificial intelligence agents, to the Linux Foundation. The search giant announced the move on Monday at the Open Source Summit North America conference. "This move is designed to accelerate the adoption and development of the A2A protocol by providing a robust framework for open collaboration, intellectual property management, and long-term stewardship," a group of Google executives wrote in a blog post today. Some applications use multiple AI agents to automate tasks for users. A network troubleshooting tool, for example, might leverage one agent to diagnose issues in routers and another to fix switch malfunctions. To find the root cause of an error that affects both routers and switches, the two agents may have to share technical data with one another. Enabling agents to coordinate their work historically required developers to write complicated custom code. Google's Agent2Agent Protocol, or A2A, software is designed to ease the task. It provides pre-packed features for moving data between agents that spare developers the hassle of writing everything from scratch. Google says that A2A lends itself to a wide range of AI use cases. If an agent struggles to process a prompt, it can use the protocol to route the request to another agent with a more relevant feature set. According to the company, A2A-powered agents can also collaborate on more involved tasks that require human input and may require days to complete. A2A packages the data that it transmits between agents into the JSON file format. JSON is widely used to move information between applications because of its relative simplicity and low memory footprint, which reduces bandwidth consumption. It's also more secure than XML, a popular technology used for the same task. JSON files that agents share with one another via A2A can include not only text but also multimodal data. An agent could, for example, send a coding assistant a sketch of a user interface element and instructions to implement it in CSS. The coding assistant could then use A2A to return the requested CSS snippet. Data is sent over the HTTP version of a network protocol called JSON-RPC 2.0 that is optimized to move JSON files. A2A provides three ways of sharing files and instructions between agents. There's a so-called synchronous mode for simple agent interactions, such as those that involve a single prompt response. The two other modes, in turn, are geared towards more complex tasks that require a significant amount of time to complete. An A2A-powered agent that performs such a task can provide updates whenever it completes a key sub-step. Google says that A2A is designed to complement another open-source agent communications protocol known as the Model Context Protocol, or MCP. It was introduced late last year by Anthropic PBC. Whereas A2A is designed to facilitate interactions between agents, MCP allows agents to interact with other types of applications such as databases. Alongside the A2A specification, Google is donating accompanying software development kits and tooling to the Linux Foundation. According to the nonprofit, the project is already backed by a half dozen major tech firms besides the Alphabet Inc. unit. The group includes Amazon Web Services Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp., ServiceNow Inc., Salesforce Inc. and SAP SE.