Jack Dorsey’s Block Joins Forces With OpenAI and Anthropic

The companies will collaborate on open-source projects that are narrowly focused on the advancement of agentic AI.

A Triple Alliance: Block, OpenAI, and Anthropic

Three prominent tech companies announced a new initiative on Tuesday, and some are calling it an unholy alliance while others are applauding it. Bitcoin firm Block and artificial intelligence (AI) darlings OpenAI and Anthropic say they have created the Agentic AI Foundation, an organization designed to cultivate open-source projects that leverage autonomous systems capable of independent decision-making with little to no human intervention.

Perhaps the most popular application of agentic AI is Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) technology. In Tesla’s case, the agents can operate vehicles without the assistance of human drivers. Other use cases can be seen at companies like Stripe, which uses agents to autonomously detect and prevent fraudulent payments. Ada, a customer service platform, has AI agents that can resolve customer issues without human involvement.

But while Jack Dorsey’s Block has deep roots in the open-source community from its association with Bitcoin, OpenAI and Anthropic aren’t exactly champions of transparency. Anthropic’s flagship large language model (LLM) Claude, is closed-source, although the firm has an open-source project called Model Context Protocol (MCP) that allows LLMs from different companies to communicate.

Read more: This Former Cash App Executive Is Sounding the Alarm on Bitcoin

Similarly, OpenAI, despite its name, keeps ChatGPT closed-source. The firm infamously morphed into a for-profit company after starting out as a pure non-profit in 2015. It pivoted to a “capped-profit” status in 2019 before finally establishing OpenAI Global in 2023, a fully for-profit holding company.

“When Anthropic and OpenAI are in the same foundation announcement, pay attention,” one X user said in response to Dorsey’s post about the announcement.

Although the coalition is somewhat unusual, all three companies are forging ahead with the new initiative. Block will contribute a new agentic AI framework dubbed “goose” to the foundation. Anthropic will offer its popular MCP protocol, and OpenAI will provide a project called “Agents.MD,” which is a tool used by coding agents.

“Agentic AI will be open, accessible, and community-driven,” Block’s announcement states. “The world has repeatedly proven that open collaboration produces better outcomes than competition in isolation.”

FAQ ⚡

• What is the Agentic AI Foundation?
  It’s a new initiative by Block, OpenAI, and Anthropic to support open-source projects focused on autonomous AI systems.
• Why are these companies partnering?
  They aim to accelerate safe, interoperable development of agentic AI by pooling tools, frameworks, and research.
• What technologies will each group contribute?
  Block is offering its new “goose” framework, Anthropic is providing MCP, and OpenAI is adding its Agents.MD project.
• How will this impact real-world AI applications?
  The collaboration is expected to advance autonomous systems used in areas like self-driving, fraud detection, and customer support.