Google’s Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol is an open standard designed to enable seamless communication and collaboration between AI agents developed by different vendors or frameworks. Introduced on April 9, 2025, A2A addresses the challenge of interoperability among autonomous AI systems within enterprise environments. By facilitating secure information exchange and coordinated actions across various platforms, A2A aims to enhance the efficiency and productivity of AI-driven workflows.
The protocol operates by establishing communication between a “client” agent, which formulates and communicates tasks, and a “remote” agent, responsible for executing these tasks. Key features of A2A include:
• Capability Discovery: Agents can advertise their functionalities through an “agent card” in JSON format, allowing client agents to identify the most suitable remote agent for a given task.
• Task Management: A2A defines task lifecycles and ensures that inter-agent communication is focused on task completion, facilitating efficient collaboration.
• Collaboration: The protocol supports the exchange of messages related to context, replies, artifacts (outputs of tasks), and instructions, enabling dynamic and flexible interactions between agents.
• User Experience Negotiation: Agents can specify content types and formats they can process, ensuring compatibility and a coherent user experience across different platforms.
Built upon existing standards such as HTTP, Server-Sent Events (SSE), and JSON-RPC, A2A is designed for easy integration with current IT infrastructures. It emphasizes security by supporting enterprise-grade authentication and authorization mechanisms. Additionally, A2A is modality-agnostic, accommodating various forms of data exchange, including text, audio, and video streams.
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The development of A2A is a collaborative effort, with contributions from over 50 technology partners, including Atlassian, Box, Cohere, Intuit, LangChain, MongoDB, PayPal, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, UKG, and Workday. This collective endeavor reflects a shared vision of creating a standardized method for AI agents to work together across diverse systems, thereby automating complex enterprise workflows and fostering innovation.
By introducing A2A, Google aims to unlock the full potential of collaborative AI agents, allowing businesses to deploy interoperable solutions that can navigate and operate across their entire application landscape. This initiative is expected to drive unprecedented levels of efficiency and innovation in the realm of agentic AI.