Linux Foundation Announces the Formation of the Agentic AI Foundation
With founding contributions from MCP, goose, and AGENTS.md, the AAIF provides a neutral, open foundation to ensure agentic AI evolves transparently and collaboratively.
December 9, 2025
Summary
The Linux Foundation has announced the formation of the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), a new foundation dedicated to promoting open standards and collaborative governance for agentic AI. The AAIF is established with three key founding projects that are transforming the agentic AI ecosystem.
The founding projects include:
- MCP: The universal standard protocol for connecting AI models to tools, data and applications. MCP has rapidly become the industry standard with over 10,000 published MCP servers.
- goose: An open source, local-first AI agent framework that combines language models, extensible tools, and standardized MCP-based integration.
- AGENTS.md: A simple, universal standard that gives AI coding agents a consistent source of project-specific guidance needed to operate reliably.
Founding Projects
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Universal standard protocol for connecting AI models to tools, data and applications. Developed by Anthropic and donated to Linux Foundation.
Adoption: Over 10,000 published MCP servers, adopted by Claude, Cursor, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, VS Code, ChatGPT and other popular AI platforms.
goose
Open source, local-first AI agent framework that combines language models, extensible tools, and standardized MCP-based integration.
Developed by: Block (Square, Cash App, Afterpay, TIDAL)
AGENTS.md
Simple, universal standard that gives AI coding agents a consistent source of project-specific guidance.
Adoption: Over 60,000 open source projects and agent frameworks including Amp, Codex, Cursor, Devin, Factory, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, Jules and VS Code.
Founding Members
Platinum Members:
Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Block, Bloomberg, Cloudflare, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI.
Gold Members:
Adyen, Arcade.dev, Cisco, Datadog, Docker, Ericsson, IBM, JetBrains, Okta, Oracle, Runlayer, Salesforce, SAP, Shopify, Snowflake, Temporal, Tetrate, and Twilio Inc.
Impact and Significance
The formation of the Agentic AI Foundation marks a crucial moment in the evolution of agentic AI. By providing a neutral, open foundation under the Linux Foundation umbrella, the AAIF ensures that these critical protocols and standards evolve transparently, collaboratively, and for the benefit of the entire community.
This initiative ensures that MCP, goose, and AGENTS.md remain open, neutral, and community-driven, establishing the fundamental infrastructure for the future of agentic AI.
We are seeing AI enter a new phase, as conversational systems shift to autonomous agents that can work together. Within just one year, MCP, AGENTS.md and goose have become essential tools for developers building this new class of agentic technologies.
— Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of Linux Foundation
Learn More
For more information about the Agentic AI Foundation and how to become a member, visit the following resources: