Beyond Context Sharing: A Unified Agent Communication Protocol (ACP) for Secure, Federated, and Autonomous Agent-to-Agent (A2A) Orchestration

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Agent Communication Protocol (ACP), a standardized framework enabling secure, federated, and autonomous agent interactions across diverse environments, advancing the development of a scalable, interoperable ecosystem of AI agents.

Contribution

It presents ACP, a novel unified protocol for secure, cross-platform agent communication, integrating decentralized identity, semantic mapping, and automated agreements.

Findings

Reduces inter-agent communication latency significantly.

Maintains zero-trust security during interactions.

Enables heterogeneous agents to collaborate effectively.

Abstract

In the artificial intelligence space, as we transition from isolated large language models to autonomous agents capable of complex reasoning and tool use. While foundational architectures and local context management protocols have been established, the challenge of cross-platform, decentralized, and secure interaction remains a significant barrier to the realization of a truly Agentic Web. Building upon the foundations of AI agent architectures and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for multi-agent coordination, this paper introduces the Agent Communication Protocol (ACP). ACP provides a standardized framework for Agent-to-Agent (AA) interaction, enabling heterogeneous agents to discover, negotiate, and execute collaborative workflows across disparate environments. We propose a federated orchestration model that integrates decentralized identity verification, semantic intent mapping, and automated service-level agreements. Our evaluation demonstrates that ACP reduces inter-agent communication latency by % while maintaining a zero-trust security posture. This work represents a critical advancement toward a scalable and interoperable ecosystem of autonomous digital entities