Cisco donates AGNTCY to Linux Foundation to boost AI interoperability

On July 29, 2025, Cisco made a significant move by donating its AGNTCY project to the Linux Foundation, marking a pivotal transition in the development of multi-agent systems in enterprise technology. This donation aims to address long-standing infrastructure gaps that have inhibited AI agents from functioning cohesively at scale within organizations. The AGNTCY framework, designed specifically for autonomous software systems, introduces core capabilities mirroring traditional networking protocols, enabling seamless interaction among AI agents across different organizational boundaries. AGNTCY's unique features allow for agent discovery enabled via the Open Agent Schema Framework, which acts like a distributed directory service. This service allows AI agents to advertise their specializations and locate necessary resources dynamically. For instance, a customer service agent can efficiently delegate tasks like billing or technical support to specialized agents with minimal manual input. The identity solutions also address compliance issues in regulated industries by ensuring that actions can be traced back to accountable individuals through a chain of delegated permissions, rather than relying solely on API keys or shared secrets. In addition to these capabilities, AGNTCY employs a messaging infrastructure based on the Secure Low-Latency Interactive Messaging protocol. This protocol supports varied communication patterns such as request-response, publish-subscribe, and bidirectional streaming, incorporating quantum-safe encryption. The framework is capable of managing complex multi-turn conversations that can last extended periods, ensuring that the dialogue between agents is not only secure but also coherent. Furthermore, AGNTCY provides observability components that deliver comprehensive insights into the workflows of multiple agents, aiding in the debugging of complex interactions that may otherwise lead to failures in broader systems. This donation aligns with a growing ecosystem of emerging standards for agent communication, particularly complementing the Agent2Agent protocol, which was donated to the Linux Foundation earlier in June 2025. This synergy creates a robust infrastructure for managing agent-to-agent communications and enhances overall efficiency within multi-agent environments. The recognition by Cisco and external stakeholders, including Google Cloud, of the necessity for neutral governance in agent interoperability reflects an industry-wide shift towards collaborative frameworks that mitigate vendor lock-in while facilitating long-term architectural decisions. In summary, Cisco's donation showcases the evolution of multi-agent systems from experimental projects to essential components of enterprise infrastructure, emphasizing the role of neutral stewardship in advancing these technologies.