What is the Google Agent2Agent Protocol (A2A)

Agent2Agent (A2A) is a standardized protocol that enables AI agents to communicate and collaborate with each other in a structured and interoperable manner. Rather than building custom connections between every pair of agents, A2A enables:

• Agent discovery: Each agent publishes an Agent Card (a JSON document) that declares its identity, capabilities, authentication requirements, and supported data schemas.
• Task-based communication: Agents exchange tasks, messages, and artifacts (results) through the protocol, enabling multi-turn interaction, stateful workflows, and streaming updates.
• Transport & interface consistency: A2A is built on common web / RPC standards (HTTP, JSON-RPC, SSE) to make adoption easier and ensure compatibility.
• Security by design: The protocol supports authentication, authorization, and secure exchanges, enabling agents to trust one another without exposing internal logic or data.

In essence, A2A treats each agent as a network-addressable “actor” with declared capabilities and a standard interface, much like how HTTP lets web services interoperate across platforms.

Why A2A Matters

• Interoperability: Agents built with different architectures, tools, or vendors can still communicate and collaborate without custom glue code.
• Scalability: As the number of agents grows, the integration complexity remains manageable because they all follow a shared protocol.
• Flexibility: Agents can dynamically discover new collaborators, delegate subtasks, or respond to evolving workflows.
• Modularity: You can swap, upgrade, or add agents independently, as long as they comply with A2A's interface.
• Security & privacy: Agents can interoperate without revealing internal state, proprietary logic, or sensitive data, while enforcing secure communication.