The landscape of artificial intelligence is undergoing a fundamental transformation. On December 9, 2025, the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) officially launched under the Linux Foundation, marking a pivotal moment in how autonomous AI systems will be developed, standardized, and deployed across the industry.
What is the Agentic AI Foundation?
The Agentic AI Foundation represents an unprecedented collaboration between industry leaders to advance open-source standards for agentic AI—systems capable of autonomous decision-making and coordination. Co-founded by Anthropic, Block, and OpenAI, AAIF ensures these transformative technologies evolve transparently through shared infrastructure and community governance.
This isn't just another industry consortium. AAIF is designed to be the neutral ground where competing interests can collaborate on the infrastructure that will power the next generation of AI applications. By operating under the Linux Foundation's proven governance model, AAIF provides the vendor-neutral environment necessary for true open standards to emerge.
The Three Founding Projects
AAIF anchors around three key open-source projects, each donated by its founding members. Together, these projects form the technical foundation for interoperable agentic AI systems.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) from Anthropic
The Model Context Protocol serves as a universal standard connecting AI models to tools and data sources. Originally developed by Anthropic, MCP has achieved remarkable adoption since its introduction, with over 10,000 public servers now available.
MCP has been integrated into major platforms including:
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Gemini
- VS Code
- Enterprise platforms like AWS and Azure
The protocol's features include asynchronous operations and SDKs available in major programming languages, with over 97 million downloads to date. This widespread adoption demonstrates the industry's hunger for standardized ways to connect AI systems with external tools and data.
goose from Block
Block's contribution, goose, is a local-first AI agent framework that integrates language models with extensible tools and MCP for reliable workflows. Already battle-tested in Block's production applications like Square and Cash App, goose represents a practical approach to building AI agents that work in real-world conditions.
The local-first architecture ensures that sensitive operations can be performed without requiring constant cloud connectivity, making it particularly valuable for enterprise deployments where data sovereignty is a concern.
AGENTS.md from OpenAI
OpenAI's AGENTS.md is a markdown standard providing project-specific guidance for coding agents. This deceptively simple contribution has achieved remarkable traction, now being used in over 60,000 open-source projects and integrated into tools like GitHub Copilot and Cursor.
AGENTS.md allows developers to provide context and instructions to AI coding assistants in a standardized format, improving the quality of AI-generated code by giving agents the information they need about project conventions, architecture decisions, and coding standards.
Membership Structure and Industry Support
The foundation's membership structure reflects the serious commitment from across the technology industry.
Platinum Members
- AWS
- Anthropic
- Block
- Bloomberg
- Cloudflare
- Microsoft
- OpenAI
Gold Members
- Cisco
- IBM
- JetBrains
- Salesforce
- Shopify
Silver Members
- Hugging Face
- Zapier
- And many others
This tiered structure mirrors successful Linux Foundation projects like Kubernetes, emphasizing vendor neutrality while ensuring adequate resources for foundation operations. The diversity of members—from cloud providers to developer tools to enterprise software—demonstrates the broad applicability of agentic AI standards.
Why Open Standards Matter for Agentic AI
The shift from conversational AI to agentic AI represents a fundamental change in how AI systems interact with the world. Unlike chatbots that simply respond to queries, agentic AI systems can:
- Autonomously plan and execute multi-step tasks
- Coordinate with other AI agents
- Interact with external tools and services
- Make decisions based on real-time information
Without shared standards, this complexity could lead to a fragmented ecosystem where AI agents from different vendors cannot interoperate. AAIF addresses this by establishing common protocols before the market becomes locked into incompatible proprietary solutions.
The benefits extend beyond technical interoperability:
- Reduced vendor lock-in: Organizations can choose best-of-breed components without being tied to a single vendor's ecosystem
- Accelerated innovation: Developers can build on shared infrastructure rather than reinventing fundamental protocols
- Improved security: Open standards enable broader security review and faster vulnerability remediation
- Lower barriers to entry: Smaller players can participate in the agentic AI ecosystem without massive infrastructure investments
What This Means for Developers
For developers working with AI systems, AAIF provides several immediate benefits:
-
Standardized integration patterns: MCP provides a consistent way to connect AI models to external tools, reducing the learning curve when switching between different AI platforms
-
Production-ready frameworks: goose offers a battle-tested foundation for building AI agents, saving developers from solving already-solved problems
-
Better AI assistance: AGENTS.md enables developers to get more relevant help from AI coding assistants by providing project-specific context
The foundation has already announced the MCP Dev Summit scheduled for April 2026 in New York, providing opportunities for developers to engage directly with the community and contribute to standard development.
Looking Ahead
The establishment of AAIF comes at a critical moment in AI development. As agentic AI capabilities rapidly advance, the decisions made now about standards and interoperability will shape the industry for decades to come.
Industry leaders have voiced strong support for the initiative. Spokespeople from AWS, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare have highlighted AAIF's role in enabling innovation without lock-in—a crucial consideration as organizations increase their AI investments.
The foundation represents a bet that open collaboration produces better outcomes than proprietary fragmentation. Given the Linux Foundation's track record with projects like Linux itself, Kubernetes, and Node.js, there's reason for optimism.
Getting Involved
Developers and organizations interested in participating in AAIF can:
- Visit AAIF.io for membership information and resources
- Contribute to the founding projects on GitHub
- Attend community events like the upcoming MCP Dev Summit
- Implement MCP, goose, or AGENTS.md in their own projects
The agentic AI future is being built now, and AAIF is ensuring it's being built on open, collaborative foundations. Whether you're building AI agents, integrating AI into existing systems, or simply following the evolution of the technology, the standards emerging from AAIF will shape how AI systems work together for years to come.
