OpenAI, alongside Anthropic and Block, has launched the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) under the Linux Foundation. This initiative aims to provide neutral stewardship for open, interoperable infrastructure as agentic AI systems transition from experimentation to real-world production. OpenAI is contributing AGENTS.md, a simple, open format for providing agents with project-specific instructions and context, to ensure long-term support and adoption across the community. Developers are rapidly adopting AI to build more capable agentic systems, and the transition from experimental agents to real-world systems is expected to be more effective with open standards. Open standards enhance safety, ease of development, and portability, preventing ecosystem fragmentation. The AAIF addresses the need for common conventions and neutral governance to prevent agent development from diverging into incompatible silos. OpenAI has made significant contributions to building agentic infrastructure in the open and has been an early adopter and core contributor to the Model Context Protocol (MCP). AGENTS.md, initially an internal solution, has been adopted by over 60,000 open-source projects and agent frameworks, reflecting growing alignment around shared, vendor-neutral conventions. Contributing AGENTS.md to the AAIF ensures developers and enterprises have a portable way to provide agents with the needed context, allowing the format to evolve openly with input from various tools and communities, and preventing any single company from controlling its direction. The AAIF operates as a directed fund under the Linux Foundation, a non-profit organization with expertise in stewarding critical open-source projects. Established by OpenAI, Block, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare, the AAIF aims to help agentic AI evolve transparently, collaboratively, and in the public interest through shared investment, open development, and community-led standards.
