Prime Highlights
- Google is introducing the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol to enable seamless cooperation between AI agents built on different platforms and companies.
- Supported by more than 50 top tech companies, A2A aims to simplify complex workflows and allow the next wave of AI-based productivity.
Key Facts
- A2A enables AI agents to find, connect, and cooperate on a common standard of JSON and HTTP.
- It provides real-time task notification and lifecycle management among cooperating AI agents.
- Google launched A2A as an open-source effort and called upon developers from all over the world to participate and lead innovation.
Background Key
During its Cloud Next conference in April 2025, Google announced the introduction of a new open protocol, Agent2Agent (A2A). The vision is to create a protocol under which AI agents developed by different companies or residing on isolated platforms can acquire knowledge about each other and work together in a standardized manner. In the A2A vision, there is a common language under which agents work fruitfully and eliminate such existing silos in corporate AI systems.
The Agent2Agent protocol provides “Agent Cards” — a lean JSON format in which any agent can state what it is capable of. Other agents can then read these cards and decide how to most effectively communicate with or outsource to the capable agent. This makes integration easier and less complicated to construct cooperative AI workflows.
One of the most important aspects of A2A is lifecycle management of tasks. It makes it possible for agents to allocate tasks, monitor progress, and notify one another in real time, so that seamless automatic coordination for distributed systems is made possible. It provides more cohesive automation of workflows, such that specialist AI agents are able to work on particular tasks and then transfer it to others on an as-needed basis.
A2A is built on top of widely accepted, standard web protocols like HTTP and JSON, allowing it to be easily adopted by installed enterprise systems and developers. Security and privacy are built as fundamental aspects of the protocol design, an essential need for mass enterprise deployment.
Google is working together with over 50 launch partners such as Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, and others that all share the vision for agent interoperability. Deloitte, one of the lead partners, reaffirmed that A2A would minimize integration costs and accelerate digital transformation through easier integration of AI agents into existing business workflows.
Different from other next-gen agent platforms, Google’s stance is based on openness and extensibility. A2A is open-sourced under an extensible permissive license through which businesses and developers can take part in fostering its development. The long-term vision is that there will be an open AI agent ecosystem with interoperability between boundaries, industries, and purposes—enabling new levels of efficiency and creativity in business AI.
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