The Internet of Agents Arrives
AGNTCY’s move to the Linux Foundation marks a new era for open agent infrastructure
Over the past year, the conversation around AI agents has shifted from speculative hype to tangible infrastructure. While single-agent pilots dominate most enterprise roadmaps today, an even bigger transformation is underway: the emergence of an Internet of Agents — distributed, interoperable systems where agents don’t just execute tasks, but coordinate, negotiate, and exchange knowledge across domains.
At the center of this movement is AGNTCY, an initiative first launched by Cisco’s Outshift in collaboration with LangChain and Galileo. Billed as “an open source collective building the critical infrastructure for AI agents to work together,” AGNTCY quickly gained steam. Within months, dozens of contributors and organizations rallied around the project, eager to shape an open standard for agent interoperability.
Openness shaped the MACH movement, and those same principles will define the next wave of agent infrastructure. The Internet of Agents is no longer a distant vision. It is becoming a foundational layer of digital ecosystems, and the decisions you make today about when and how to engage will define your organization’s readiness for the next wave of AI-enabled transformation.
The Internet of Agents: From Concept to Reality
Today, most enterprises experimenting with AI agents do so in isolation: a customer support agent here, a sales operations bot there. These agents are powerful, but siloed—like skilled players practicing alone. The Internet of Agents proposes a new model, where agents run plays together, passing and coordinating under shared rules.
The analogy to the early internet is intentional. Just as TCP/IP enabled communication between disparate networks, the Internet of Agents seeks to establish universal protocols for intelligent systems. Without it, scaling from a handful of isolated agents to enterprise-wide automation is nearly impossible. That’s where AGNTCY’s vision comes into daily reality.
AGNTCY’s Origins and The Building Blocks of the Ecosystem
AGNTCY was established in March 2025 with the purpose of building the discovery, messaging, and interoperability layers needed for agents to connect seamlessly.
At first glance, it resembled a classic vendor-led initiative, raising questions about long-term neutrality. But the project quickly gained traction. By mid-2025, over 30 organizations had joined as contributors, from infrastructure providers like MongoDB and Weaviate, to agent tooling innovators such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, AG2, and CrewAI, and SIs including Orium. The appetite for open standards was clear.
What it boils down to is this: AGNTCY is more than a protocol. It’s an ecosystem in formation, with over 75 organizations contributing to its development to date. Together, these players are assembling the scaffolding of an open agent economy. If AGNTCY succeeds, it will be because it bridges silos and enables a diverse ecosystem to interoperate, not because it tries to control the stack.
The Linux Foundation Era: Neutrality and Scale
In July AGNTCY transitioned into the Linux Foundation. Why is this so important? History has shown us that when technologies like Kubernetes or PyTorch move from vendor incubation into neutral governance, enterprise confidence skyrockets. It’s like moving from a pickup game to an official season: with the Linux Foundation as the governing body, enterprises know the rules are consistent and the playing field is fair.
Crucially, the Linux Foundation era brought heavyweight new backers: Dell Technologies, Google Cloud, Oracle, and Red Hat, alongside Cisco. This consortium mirrors the coalition that once propelled Kubernetes into mainstream enterprise adoption. With AGNTCY now governed under the Linux Foundation’s neutral umbrella, it’s become obvious that agent infrastructure has reached a crucial inflection point.
Strategic Implications for Digital Leaders
For digital executives, the strategic calculus has shifted. A year ago, investing in agent-to-agent protocols felt premature. Today, with AGNTCY under Linux Foundation stewardship and industry giants behind it, the risk profile looks different.
Still, challenges remain. Some protocols—such as SLIM, AGNTCY’s proposed messaging standard—depart from HTTP, raising adoption hurdles. Enterprises will need to weigh the benefits of agent-native protocols against the friction of introducing new infrastructure. Promisingly, the organization is ensuring compatibility with Pub Sub, Kafka, and other similar protocols to ease adoption, so we may see that the hurdles are easier to clear than they first seem.
Regardless, the broader lesson echoes what we saw with MACH Alliance adoption in composable commerce or with Kubernetes in cloud-native computing: early movers gain agility, but standards take time to normalize. Leaders who ignore the trend risk being locked into outdated architectures.
Conclusion: The Internet of Agents is Becoming Infrastructure
AGNTCY’s move to the Linux Foundation is more than a governance shift. It marks the transition from a vendor-backed experiment to an open, community-driven infrastructure project with global relevance. The Internet of Agents is arriving. The framework is built, the playbook is agreed on, and the talent is already practicing together. The question is whether your organization will step in to play—or watch from the sidelines.
For digital executives, the imperative is clear: understand the landscape, engage early, and prepare your organization for a world where agents don’t just automate tasks, but collaborate as part of a larger, intelligent ecosystem. The foundations are being laid now. The question is whether you’ll be ready to build on them.
Jason Cottrell
Founder and CEO, Orium
Jason Cottrell is the CEO & Founder of Orium, the leading composable commerce consultancy and system integrator in the Americas. He works closely with clients and partners to ensure business goals and customer needs are being met, leading the Orium team through ambitious transformation programs at the intersection of commerce, composability, and customer data.