At Cisco, we believe in the power of collaboration and neutral governance to drive innovation. That’s why we’re proud to join the newly-formed Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) under the Linux Foundation as a launch Gold member, supporting its mission to advance open standards like the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
MCP, originally created and open-sourced by Anthropic in late 2024, has already gained significant traction as a standard for AI interoperability with software that consumers use, or are part of the toughest enterprise environments. With its transition to the LF under AAIF, we are excited that MCP will now be governed by a neutral, community-driven foundation. This move is a critical first step in making MCP a truly open standard, built by and for the builders focused on driving real-world use cases. We are expecting a full stack of agentic AI open source projects to be a part of AAIF over time, along with the founding contributions of Block’s goose and Open AI’s AGENTS.md projects.
Cisco’s Commitment to Building in the Open
Agents need to be able to work together to be actually useful. They need to freely find each other, communicate, and collaborative on delivering outcomes: A reality that has yet to be achieved. To harness the true transformative potential of AI, the need for open, interoperable frameworks has never been more critical.
We are focused on fostering a thriving ecosystem for agentic AI where agents can work securely and seamlessly across frameworks and vendors. As active technical steering committee members of both the Agent2Agent (A2A) Protocol project and the AGNTCY project, we have participated in ensuring they both joined the Linux Foundation in the past year. With MCP being a core part of the AGNTCY architecture since launch, we believe the AAIF is another key piece of this puzzle.
What is AGNTCY, and Why Does It Matter?
We have most closely been involved in the development of an open Internet of Agents through co-founding and building the AGNTCY project.
Think back to the early internet—we needed TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, and other essential components before anything useful could happen. That’s what AGNTCY is building for multi-agent systems: the discovery mechanisms, identity and trust, the messaging layer – supporting MCP, A2A and other protocols, and observability tools for end-to-end operation. The outcome? Agents from different organizations discover each other, authenticate, and collaborate securely.
Outshift by Cisco donated the initial code and specifications to the Linux Foundation because this infrastructure needs neutral governance. No single companyshould control how agents work with each other—walled gardens stifle innovation. The Linux Foundation provides this neutral stewardship, with formative members like Cisco, Dell Technologies, Google Cloud, Oracle, and Red Hat working alongside the community to build specifications, code, and services that anyone can use.
The Road Ahead
While the transition of MCP to the AAIF is a significant milestone, it’s just the beginning. Key protocols and projects are still operating as islands and there is much work to be done to bring the community together. The Internet of Agents will not be built by any one company or framework—it will require collaboration across the entire ecosystem.
At Cisco, we are committed to doing this work. We are investing in open standards, supporting initiatives like MCP, A2A, and AGNTCY, and working with the broader community to stitch these core projects together. We believe this is the only path forward for achieving a shared vision of agentic AI success that fosters trust, innovation, and collaboration.
The future of agentic AI is a shared journey, and we are proud to be part of it.
Learn more:
