Agentic AI foundation names David Nalley as Board Chair

The Agentic AI Foundation has appointed AWS executive David Nalley as governing board chair and added 97 organisations as more companies push for common approaches to agent-based artificial intelligence.

The industry group added 18 Gold Members and 79 Silver Members, bringing total membership to 146 across cloud infrastructure, software, payments, telecoms and security.

Nalley is Director of Developer Experience at AWS and brings more than two decades of open source leadership experience. As chair, he will lead the governing board and oversee the foundation's strategic direction and governance.

Agent-based AI has moved quickly from research and prototypes into early commercial deployments. Companies now face a fragmented ecosystem of tools and approaches, increasing pressure for shared protocols and standards so agents can work across different systems.

New members cited interoperability and security as key concerns, while others pointed to the need for open governance in a market where vendors are competing to define de facto standards.

The foundation focuses on open protocols, tooling and best practices for agent-based systems. Its remit includes interoperability between agents and approaches that can be adopted across organisations rather than within a single product environment.

The new Gold Members are Akamai, American Express, Autodesk, Circle, Diagrid, Equinix, Global Payments, Hitachi, Huawei, Infobip, JPMorgan Chase, Keycard, Lenovo, Red Hat, ServiceNow, TELUS, UiPath and Workato.

Incoming Silver Members include companies and projects across identity, security, databases, developer tooling and AI, including 1Password, Apollo GraphQL, Dataiku, ESET, Future of Life Institute, Hashgraph, MotherDuck, Neo4j and Mistral AI.

Standards push

Industry bodies and open source foundations have become focal points for technical coordination in AI. The Agentic AI Foundation is positioning itself as a neutral venue where competitors can agree on protocols without placing control in the hands of any single vendor.

It also highlighted the role of open source in AI infrastructure, citing research claiming that 89% of organisations that have adopted AI use open source in their infrastructure.

Nalley described the moment as a shift from experimentation to operational systems. "Agents are rapidly maturing from experimental prototypes to production-ready systems that are fundamentally transforming how we build applications and conduct business across industries," said Nalley.

He added that building the "plumbing" that connects agents and systems will require collective effort. "Building and scaling open source tools and standards for agentic AI will require the collective expertise and collaboration of all our members. I'm thrilled to welcome so many new companies to the AAIF and excited to invite innovative projects and contributors across the AI ecosystem to join us as we work together to shape the future," he said.

Broad membership

The mix of new members shows agent-based AI spreading beyond software development teams. Payments groups and financial services firms are joining alongside data centre operators, device makers and enterprise software suppliers.

That range also highlights where standards could matter. Financial institutions must manage risk and compliance when software takes actions. Telecoms and messaging providers face challenges around identity, authentication and abuse. Data centre operators and cloud providers need predictable interfaces for deploying and running distributed systems.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said the membership count signalled commercial interest moving from pilots into deployment. "Nearly 150 organizations joining the AAIF in its early days is a strong signal that agentic AI is shifting from experimentation to real-world deployment," Zemlin said.

He also linked the standards debate to governance. "The infrastructure for autonomous systems must be open, interoperable and community-governed. The AAIF exists to make that possible," he said.

Member statements highlighted priorities including security, portability and cross-platform integration. Some referenced specific connectivity approaches, including MCP, as an emerging standard for connecting agents to tools and systems.

"The enterprise adoption of AI agents requires open standards that prioritize interoperability, architectural flexibility, and security. Akamai is proud to support the Agentic AI Foundation as a Gold Member to help shape frameworks that enable businesses to deploy autonomous AI at scale. Standards for AI agents and MCP servers will help developers leverage the right infrastructure to meet their needs without compromising portability or security. We're committed to working with the community to accelerate responsible, scalable AI innovation," said Jon Alexander, Senior Vice President of Product for the Cloud Technology Group, Akamai.

AAIF members are due to gather in New York City at the MCP Dev Summit from April 2-3.