OpenAI, Anthropic and Block have co-founded the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) under the Linux Foundation to standardise and accelerate open-source “agentic AI.” At launch, three cornerstone projects move into AAIF: OpenAI’s AGENTS.md, Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Block’s goose agent framework. The effort has backing from Google, Microsoft, AWS, Bloomberg and Cloudflare. linuxfoundation.org+2WIRED+2

Why this matters for 2026

Open, vendor-neutral standards are becoming the plumbing of AI assistants that plan, call tools and act. By placing MCP, goose and AGENTS.md in a Linux Foundation home, AAIF aims to ensure interoperability, transparent governance and community-driven evolution—the same playbook that helped Linux, Kubernetes and PyTorch scale. WIRED+1

What’s new

• New foundation: AAIF is established under the Linux Foundation as a neutral home for agent standards and projects.

• Founding donations: OpenAI donates AGENTS.md (a lightweight spec for “README-for-agents”), Anthropic donates MCP (a protocol for connecting models/agents to tools and data) and Block donates goose (an extensible agent framework).

• Ecosystem support: Major cloud and enterprise contributors (Google, Microsoft, AWS, Bloomberg, Cloudflare) sign on at launch.

The projects

• AGENTS.md (OpenAI): A simple, open Markdown file convention—placed in a repo (or user scope)—that tells coding agents how to build, test, lint and follow project rules; think “README for agents.”

• Model Context Protocol / MCP (Anthropic): An open protocol that lets agents securely connect to external tools, data sources and environments—key for “plan → tool-use → act” loops. Now governed under AAIF.

• goose (Block): An open-source agent framework intended to plug into shared building blocks like MCP and AGENTS.md.

What this means for builders

AAIF’s baseline lets you wire agents into your existing stack with less bespoke glue: create tasks in Asana, reference runbooks in Notion, map systems in Miro, and ground responses with enterprise search via Glean—while adhering to open standards (AGENTS.md + MCP).

OpenAI, Anthropic and Block launched the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) under the Linux Foundation to standardise agentic AI. Founding donations include AGENTS.md (OpenAI), MCP (Anthropic) and goose (Block), with support from Google, Microsoft, AWS, Bloomberg and Cloudflare to drive open, interoperable agent ecosystems.

FAQs

What is the Agentic AI Foundation?
A Linux Foundation initiative providing a neutral home for open-source standards and projects that enable interoperable AI agents (e.g., MCP, goose, AGENTS.md). linuxfoundation.org

What did OpenAI contribute?
AGENTS.md, a lightweight, open format for briefing coding agents on build, test and workflow rules in a repository. GitHub

Who else supports AAIF?
Launch supporters include Google, Microsoft, AWS, Bloomberg and Cloudflare. WIRED

How does this benefit developers and enterprises?
Common standards reduce lock-in and make it easier to plug agents into tools and data—speeding reliable workflows and compliance across existing systems. WIRED