Cisco has officially transferred its AGNTCY project, an open framework for multi-agent AI systems, to the Linux Foundation, paving the way for industry-wide collaboration on interoperable agent infrastructure. Cisco has committed to remaining an active contributor alongside partners such as Dell Technologies, Google Cloud, Oracle, and Red Hat.

Originally developed by Cisco’s Outshift innovation arm and first open source in March, AGNTCY provides essential components for agent collaboration: agent discovery, cryptographic identity, secure messaging, and observability. The goal is to help agents, even those from different vendors or platforms, coordinate seamlessly in enterprise environments.

At its core, AGNTCY acts as the infrastructure layer of the emerging “Internet of Agents”, much like DNS and security layers underpin the early web. Its Open Agent Schema Framework enables agents to discover one another, while a decentralized directory supports dynamic capability lookup. Identity components let agents authenticate and enforce permissions across domains. Secure Low-latency Interactive Messaging enables efficient, quantum-safe agent and human interactions. Finally, observability tools track multi-agent workflows—crucial for debugging AI-driven systems.

Importantly, AGNTCY interoperates with existing protocols such as Agent2Agent recently donated by Google—and Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol. Together, these frameworks aim to break siloed agent deployments and support full-stack collaboration. Industry leaders emphasize the importance of neutral stewardship for this foundational layer. As Outshift SVP Vijoy Pandey noted, “Building the infrastructure for the Internet of Agents requires community ownership, not vendor control.” Cisco expects AGNTCY to evolve under Linux Foundation governance as an open, neutral commons.

Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, echoed this sentiment, calling AGNTCY a groundwork for secure, interoperable agent ecosystems that enhance transparency, efficiency, and trust in AI networks. Support from partners is strong. Dell Technologies’ CTO John Roese, Google Cloud’s Rao Surapaneni, Oracle’s Roger Barga, and Red Hat’s Steve Watt have all joined AGNTCY as founding members, reinforcing the open-source push. Many other companies, over 75 contributors are already backing the initiative.

Analysts believe AGNTCY could become a standard infrastructure layer for agentic systems, especially as AI agents proliferate. A recent estimate by Bank of America projects that AI agent deployments may generate up to 80 billion interactions daily, intensifying the need for protocols that support discovery, messaging, identity, and observability at scale. This donation comes amid broader open-source trends in AI. Notably, Google already contributed the A2A protocol to the Linux Foundation earlier this year. AGNTCY builds on that foundation, offering end-to-end agent lifecycle support from build to runtime execution.

By contributing AGNTCY to a neutral governance body, Cisco aims to accelerate the emergence of an interoperable, secure, and vendor-agnostic agent ecosystem. As enterprises deploy workflows spanning ServiceNow, Salesforce, robotics, and AI models, AGNTCY promises to become the connective tissue that enables reliable, multi-agent coordination at internet scale.