Article

Airbyte Joins the Agentic AI Foundation

Michel Tricot

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January 20, 2026

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2 min

Summarize this article with:

I am excited to announce that we have joined the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation.

Agents need reliable access to real business data across dozens of systems. And they need to be able to do this at scale, in systems that grow more complex by the day. This is a dilemma that needs to be solved for agentic AI to deliver on the promise of its potential.

At Airbyte, we're already working on that problem, and we look forward to partnering with companies who share our commitment to building the future of agentic AI.

Agentic Data Infrastructure is the Bottleneck

Here's what that problem looks like in practice. Companies are racing to deploy AI agents, but they're hitting the same wall: their data is locked in dozens of SaaS apps, databases, warehouses, and lakes. No unified access layer. No governance. No real-time context.

AI agents are stuck in demo mode because they can't access the data they need. Most enterprise data lives inside operational systems: CRMs, support tools, ERPs, HR platforms, code repositories. Agents need to read this data, reason over it, and write back to it. But accessing these systems reliably at production scale remains the hardest part of building useful agents.

This is infrastructure work, and this is what we excel at.

Why We're Building in the Open

The Agentic AI Foundation brings together the people building the core protocols that agentic systems will run on. MCP (Model Context Protocol), AGENTS.md, and goose are becoming essential tools for developers. These aren't proprietary standards locked behind corporate walls. They're open, transparent, and community-driven.

This aligns perfectly with how we've always operated at Airbyte. We started as an open source project because we believed data movement should be accessible, not locked behind expensive enterprise contracts. That same philosophy applies to agentic AI.

Jim Zemlin at the Linux Foundation put it well: "AI is shifting from conversational systems to autonomous agents that work together. Within just one year, these protocols became essential. Now they need the stability and transparency that open governance provides."

What We're Bringing to the Table

This isn't theoretical for us. We're already building the infrastructure agents need.

We have built and continue to release agent connectors purpose-built for agentic workloads. Each connector exposes strongly typed, documented interfaces to operational systems. Agents can fetch live records, search across data, and write back to systems through a consistent interface.

We support both MCP servers for protocol compatibility and direct SDK-based tool calling for production teams that need full control. Our Python SDK can be deployed anywhere, giving you data sovereignty while maintaining the flexibility agents require.

Through our AAIF membership, we're bringing practical experience from moving data for 7,000+ enterprises. We're contributing expertise around:

Secure data movement at scale. We've built 600+ connectors to APIs, databases, and platforms. We know what breaks, what scales, and what security teams actually need.

Permission and authorization handling. Agents need to respect the same access controls that govern human users. We're working on patterns that make this auditable and enforceable.

Interoperability standards. Your agent orchestration layer shouldn't dictate your data platform choices. We're pushing for open standards that let teams mix and match tools.

Real-time data access patterns. Agents can't wait for nightly batch jobs. We're focused on patterns that support continuous data availability without sacrificing governance.

The Bigger Picture

Here's what I believe: open source is how we build things too complex for any one company to own. The internet. Kubernetes. Linux itself. When a technology becomes foundational infrastructure, the smartest move isn't to control it.

AI is one of those ideas.

The companies that win in the agentic AI era will be the ones that build in the open. Not just releasing models, but contributing to the protocols, standards, and infrastructure that everyone will rely on.

The best ideas emerge from public scrutiny, not private roadmaps. That's not idealism. It's the only way to win with AI.

The Agentic AI Foundation gives us a neutral space to work on these problems with other companies who get it. We're not trying to own the standard. We're trying to build infrastructure the world can rely on.

What's Next

This is early. The foundation just launched, and we're still figuring out the working groups and initiatives. But I'm excited about the potential here.

If you're building agentic systems and struggling with data access, governance, or interoperability, reach out. We're learning in public, and we'd love to compare notes.

The future of AI is open. Let's build it together.

Read the press release for more details here

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