The Collaboration Layer: Inter-Agent Protocols (Part 1).

Your AI agent can access your database and send emails. Great.

But what happens when it needs to collaborate with other agents to solve complex problems?

That's where inter-agent protocols come in. 

Google's A2A (Agent-to-Agent) Protocol: Enterprise Focus

Google has made "enormous noise" about A2A, and for good reason. It's designed for sophisticated enterprise workflows where multiple specialised agents need to work together.

Key Strengths:

• Built-in enterprise security

• Supports long-running tasks that might take days to complete

• Handles multi-modal communication (text, files, audio, video)

• Includes proper authentication and governance

Perfect for large enterprises running complex workflows, e.g. financial planning. 

Reality Check:

• Still in development stage 

• Complex to implement

• Primarily designed for internal enterprise use rather than cross-platform collaboration

IBM's AComP (Agent Communication Protocol): The MCP Evolution

IBM has forked MCP and is evolving it toward inter-agent communication. 

The Trade-offs:

• Upside: Building on MCP's proven foundation means existing implementations can evolve gradually

• Downside: Unclear differentiation from other protocols

ANP (Agent Network Protocol): Internet-Scale Vision

The open-source community's answer to vendor lock-in. ANP aims to create an "Internet of Agents" where any agent can discover and communicate with any other agent, regardless of vendor.

The Big Idea: Break down silos between different AI systems. Your Microsoft agent could collaborate with someone else's Google agent to solve cross-organisational problems.

How It Works:

• Uses decentralised identity standards

• Focuses on creating network effects - the more agents that join, the more valuable the network becomes

The Challenge: Requires broad industry adoption to be effective. Classic chicken-and-egg problem.

Strategic Choice: Internal vs External

Do you need agents collaborating:

• Within your organisation (choose enterprise protocols like A2A)

• Across organisational boundaries (monitor ANP development)

Recommendation:

Most businesses should start with proven internal solutions and plan for future external collaboration as standards mature.

Next week: We'll cover the remaining inter-agent protocols, including blockchain approaches and some genuinely innovative ideas about dynamic protocol generation.

Credits: [Session] MCP vs ACP vs A2A: Comparing Agent Protocols with Laurie Voss from LlamaIndex , A Survey of AI Agent Protocols