Agentic AI Protocols: MCP, A2A, and ACP

Agentic AI Protocols: Coordinating the Future of Autonomous Systems

As autonomous agents become more capable, coordinating their interactions with tools and with each other has become a critical challenge. In this session, we’ll introduce the emerging landscape of Agentic AI protocols — with a focus on MCP (Model Context Protocol), A2A (Agent-to-Agent Protocol), and ACP (Agent Communication Protocol). These AI protocols are laying the foundation for interoperability, scalability, and real-world adoption of agentic AI.

We’ll begin with an overview of the multi-agent coordination challenge — why multiple agents require shared standards for communication, negotiation, and orchestration. Then we’ll explore how MCP, developed by Anthropic, provides a “USB-C for AI” that enables seamless integration with thousands of external tools. Building on this, we’ll look at A2A for direct agent-to-agent coordination and ACP for creating a common messaging language between heterogeneous agents.

You’ll also see a live demo of Zapier’s MCP integration, showing how an AI agent can trigger multi-step workflows across 7,000+ apps — extended with a multi-agent scenario to illustrate how protocols complement each other in practice. Finally, we’ll compare MCP, A2A, and ACP, and discuss strategies for designing scalable, standards-based agent systems.

What We Will Cover:

• Understand the multi-agent coordination challenge and why protocols are needed
• Learn how MCP, A2A, and ACP address different aspects of agent interoperability
• See a live demo of Zapier’s MCP integration with an extended multi-agent workflow
• Explore design strategies for orchestrating multiple agents, including retries, delegation, and error handling
• Compare MCP vs. A2A vs. ACP — when to use each and how they work together
• Discover practical applications and future directions for Agentic AI protocols

Hands on Exercise:

Through live demos and audience Q&A, participants will gain hands-on insights into MCP-powered automation and explore how emerging protocols like A2A and ACP extend agent capabilities for real-world, multi-agent systems.