Agentic AI is in a hurry, and the open-source projects underpinning it are evolving at a breakneck pace.

To ensure that agentic tooling advances as quickly as deployment, the Linux Foundation adopted Model Context Protocol (MCP), Goose, and AGENTS.md from their corporate progenitors, placing the group under the newly formed umbrella of the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) in late 2025.

And at the recent MCP Dev Summit in New York City, The New Stack sat down with Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation, and Mazin Gilbert, the new executive director of the new AAIF. As it happened, our chat with Zemlin and Gilbert came at the perfect time: directly on the heels of the AAIF’s executive director stepping into the role. 

Why the handoff in leadership? To hear Zemlin tell it, he couldn’t helm both the Linux Foundation and the AAIF forever. He had to find a technology leader for the agentic foundation with both IQ and EQ and someone who could lead from behind, wielding only influence. It was better to work two jobs while hunting for the right candidate than make a selection too early, the Linux Foundation head explained.

Gilbert has big shoes to fill. Not only because he’s stepping directly into a role previously held by Zemlin, but also because the AAIF will have a large hand in defining the DNA of the agentic stack. The AAIF cares for three tools today, but that’s hardly the end-state of open-source software empowering AI agents.

There’s so much left to build, and deciding not only the order of creation, but also what to build, and what not to, are critical questions for the technology industry as a whole. (Godspeed Gilbert and the AAIF maintainer cohort!)

For the entire conversation, including how the Linux Foundation is a “reverse venture capitalist,” why money and open collaboration are mutually reinforcing, the impact of early adopters in defining the agentic stack, and how the AAIF intends to balance voices in making development decisions, check out the latest episode of The New Stack podcast.

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