A2A Protocol
Agent-to-Agent protocol — an emerging standard for enabling autonomous agents (potentially built on different frameworks or hosted by different vendors) to advertise capabilities, negotiate tasks, and collaborate over a common wire format.
Related terms
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
An open protocol authored by Anthropic that standardizes how LLM applications discover, invoke, and stream from external tools, resources, and prompt templates. MCP treats tool discovery as a first-class runtime concern rather than requiring per-integration glue code.
- AI Agent
An autonomous AI system that can perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals. Agents can use tools, interact with APIs, and coordinate with other agents.
- Multi-Agent Systems
Systems where multiple AI agents work together, each with specialized capabilities, to accomplish complex tasks. Agents may cooperate, negotiate, or compete depending on the system design.
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Next steps
- Take the assessment— See where you stand
Call this framework and its tools from your own agent via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. Works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Zed, Continue, and the OpenAI Agents SDK.
Where this fits
A2A Protocol is part of the Agentic AI vocabulary used in the Generative AI Maturity Framework. See the full glossary for the complete set of 149 defined terms, or take the free maturity assessment to see where your organisation stands.