Microsoft has announced it will adopt Google’s recently introduced Agent2Agent (A2A) open protocol, a standard designed to facilitate communication among AI-powered “agents,” across multiple platforms and services.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Microsoft confirmed that Google’s A2A specification will be integrated into two prominent Microsoft AI development environments: Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio. The tech giant further signaled its support by joining the A2A working group hosted on GitHub, where it plans to actively contribute to ongoing improvements and tooling around the specification.
The A2A protocol, launched by Google earlier this year, allows detailed collaboration between AI agents—semi-autonomous software tools—enabling these agents to securely share goals, coordinate actions, and operate across different applications, services, and cloud providers. By conforming to A2A, Microsoft believes this move will aid developers who want to stitch together powerful, multi-agent workflows, thereby enhancing operational productivity and interoperability.
Microsoft emphasized the significance of open collaborative standards in their announcement, stating, “By supporting A2A and building upon our open orchestration platform, we’re laying the foundation for the next generation of software—collaborative, observable, and adaptive by design. The best agents won’t live confined to a single application or cloud; they’ll seamlessly work together, crossing models, domains, and ecosystems.”
Once fully implemented in Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio, Microsoft’s platforms will enable agents developed within its ecosystem to securely interact with external agents built on other technologies or hosted beyond Microsoft’s systems. For instance, an agent running on Microsoft’s framework might schedule meetings while coordinating seamlessly with an agent hosted by Google that could draft and send out corresponding email invitations.
In describing its support for A2A, Microsoft highlighted the advantages for enterprise customers, noting that organizations can now readily build more sophisticated multi-agent workflows that integrate seamlessly with their internal systems, external business partnerships, and other production environments, all while adhering to required governance protocols and service-level agreements.
As businesses increasingly recognize the productivity boost agents can provide, interest and investment in the AI agent space have surged notably. According to recent market data, 65% of companies surveyed are currently exploring AI agent technology. Analysts foresee the AI agent market expanding significantly, predicting a leap from an estimated $7.84 billion in 2025 to more than $52 billion by 2030.
Microsoft’s backing for Google’s A2A follows an industry trend toward greater standardization and openness. Earlier this year, Microsoft also began supporting MCP, Anthropic’s standard for integrating AI models with enterprise data systems, within Copilot Studio. Major AI providers such as Google and OpenAI had previously indicated their adoption of MCP, underscoring a growing consensus toward the interoperability of AI systems across technology providers.
