Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Champions Open Protocols to Accelerate Agentic AI Innovation

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has publicly endorsed two groundbreaking open protocols—Google DeepMind’s Agent2Agent (A2A) and Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP)—signaling a major shift toward open, interoperable agentic AI systems. This endorsement is expected to accelerate the development of agentic AI applications and platforms by enabling seamless collaboration and communication between AI agents across different vendors and ecosystems.

Agentic AI refers to autonomous AI agents capable of performing complex tasks, interacting with other agents, and adapting dynamically within workflows. Nadella’s endorsement underscores Microsoft’s commitment to open standards as the foundation for scalable, flexible AI ecosystems rather than proprietary, siloed solutions.

Understanding A2A and MCP Protocols

The Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol, introduced by Google DeepMind in 2025, standardizes communication between AI agents by defining a shared schema for exchanging tasks, requests, and results. This enables multi-vendor AI workflows to integrate smoothly, fostering composability and reducing vendor lock-in in complex enterprise environments.

The Model Context Protocol (MCP), open-sourced by Anthropic in late 2024, defines a standardized and secure method for AI models to request context and data from external sources. Acting like a universal interface, MCP simplifies AI integration with enterprise data and applications, ensuring consistent security, governance, and scalability across platforms.

Why Open Protocols Matter for Enterprises

Nadella’s endorsement addresses a critical enterprise challenge: vendor lock-in. Historically, enterprises faced costly and complex integration hurdles when adopting AI solutions tied to proprietary ecosystems. By supporting open protocols like A2A and MCP, Microsoft enables heterogeneous infrastructure environments where AI components from multiple providers can interoperate seamlessly.

This openness fosters innovation by allowing enterprises to customize AI workflows, mix and match models, and fine-tune AI agents with their own business data and processes. It also enhances security and compliance by providing end-to-end visibility and standardized governance mechanisms across agent interactions and data requests.

Microsoft’s Strategic Role in Agentic AI Ecosystems

Microsoft’s integration of A2A and MCP support into Copilot Studio and Foundry platforms exemplifies its commitment to open agentic AI architectures. This move positions Microsoft as a cross-platform enabler, empowering developers and enterprises to build interoperable, multi-agent AI workflows that drive efficiency and innovation.

By championing open standards, Microsoft reduces friction and integration costs, accelerating the velocity and quality of data exchange. This facilitates faster deployment of AI-powered solutions that can adapt to evolving business needs while maintaining robust security and compliance frameworks.

The Future of Agentic AI Innovation

Nadella’s endorsement acts as a catalyst for the agentic AI community, encouraging startups and established players alike to adopt open protocols for collaboration and integration. This shift promises to unlock new classes of AI applications and platforms that are more adaptable, interoperable, and scalable.

Open standards will drive sustainable growth by enabling enterprises to innovate faster, reduce vendor dependency, and maintain compliance with evolving regulatory requirements. As agentic AI matures, the real competitive advantage will come from how organizations steer, ground, and fine-tune AI models within open, interoperable ecosystems.