Photon brings agent-to-agent coordination into iMessage group chats

Photon, a messaging infrastructure company, said it has added A2A, or agent-to-agent communication and collaboration, to iMessage group chats. The update lets a user’s personal AI agent find other agents, obtain their phone numbers, and add them to a shared group conversation to work on a task together. In Photon’s example, a user planning a team outing could have one agent recruit other agents focused on lodging, rides, and restaurant reservations, with all of them coordinating inside the same chat while the user watches or joins in. Photon calls the setup "Agent-to-Agent-to-Person," describing a workflow where multiple agents and a human collaborate in one thread. The company said the feature is built on the A2A protocol and its agent discovery mechanism, a protocol that was originally proposed by Google. Photon had already enabled AI agents to send and receive messages through iMessage. The new release adds the ability to actively discover other agents and create group chats. Photon also recently closed a $4.5 million seed round. Founder Daniel Tian said he wants every business to offer its own agent so other agents can contact it directly.