Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation & Mazin Gilbert, Agentic AI Foundation

In this interview from theCUBE MCP Dev Summit 2026, Jim Zemlin, chief executive officer of the Linux Foundation, joins Mazin Gilbert, executive director of the Agentic AI Foundation, to talk with theCUBE's John Furrier about the race to establish open standards for the emerging "internet of agents." Zemlin announces that the Agentic AI Foundation has already surpassed the Cloud Native Computing Foundation as the Linux Foundation's largest organization, reaching over 170 members in just a few months. He frames the underlying shift as fundamental: unlike traditional software that people use, agents are technology that uses other technology — dramatically expanding AI's addressable scope. Gilbert, newly appointed after five years building AI solutions at Google, underscores why MCP, the foundation's core protocol with 97 million monthly downloads, is only the beginning, with the real goal being production deployments that solve actual business problems. The conversation also explores the fragmentation risk that looms if open standards aren't codified quickly, with Gilbert warning that the window for action is measured in weeks and months, not years. Zemlin points to the grassroots energy driving the movement, citing practitioners from Nordstrom and JPMorgan sharing real-world successes and struggles at the sold-out New York event. The panel also breaks down the x402 payment standard — originally created by Coinbase and now joining the Linux Foundation with backing from American Express, Visa, Stripe, Google, Microsoft and Amazon — which establishes a standardized way for agents to transact over HTTP. From a global series of MCP Dev Summits planned for Mumbai, Tokyo, Seoul, London and Africa to the debut of AgentCon in San Jose on October 22nd, the interview maps out how the foundation intends to prevent a proprietary lock-in era before it starts.