Circle joined the Agentic AI Foundation last week as the standards-focused group expanded sharply. The foundation said it added 18 new Gold Members and 79 new Silver Members, bringing total participation to 146 organizations.
The organization is focused on open standards for agent-based AI systems. According to the foundation, members work together on open protocols, shared tooling, and operating best practices as agentic AI moves closer to production deployment. That shift is drawing in firms from technology, finance, and infrastructure at the same time.
Financial infrastructure gains weight in agentic AI talks
The foundation said programmable, internet-native money is becoming a core requirement as AI agents take on more real-time decision-making and execution. In that setting, systems need dependable ways to move value across borders. Circle joined as a Gold Member alongside companies from cloud computing, payments, infrastructure, and enterprise software.
Current membership now spans payments, cloud services, manufacturing, telecommunications, and automation. Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said the level of early participation points to growing demand for interoperable systems. He also said autonomous infrastructure needs community governance as deployments scale.
David Nalley takes board chair role
Alongside the membership expansion, the foundation appointed David Nalley as governing board chair. Nalley is director of developer experience at Amazon Web Services and, according to the foundation, brings more than two decades of open-source leadership experience. He will oversee strategic priorities, governance processes, and member coordination.
Nalley said members will focus on shared standards as agents move from prototypes into operational systems. The foundation also cited research showing that 89% of organizations using AI rely on open-source infrastructure, a data point it used to argue for neutral governance and collaborative development.