Multi-Agent System

A system in which several autonomous agents interact — cooperating, delegating or competing — to solve a problem no single agent handles alone.

Multi-agent systems are why agent-to-agent transport protocols exist; the agentic web is the substrate over which these agents discover and call one another.

term
Multi-Agent System
category
core
short_def
A system in which several autonomous agents interact — cooperating, delegating or competing — to solve a problem no single agent handles alone.
long_def
In a multi-agent system, work is decomposed across specialized agents (a planner, a researcher, a coder) that exchange messages and results. Coordination can be centralized (an orchestrator routes tasks) or peer-to-peer (agents negotiate directly), which is exactly what agent-to-agent protocols standardize.
see_also
orchestration a2a delegation
etymology_origin
— verify-against-primary-at-build ↗ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-agent_system — established in distributed AI / agent research well before LLMs (1980s-90s)
related_to
orchestration a2a delegation ai-agent
contrast_with
Unlike a single agent looping alone, a multi-agent system splits a goal across agents that communicate, so each can specialize and run in parallel.
example
A research task might route a planner agent to decompose it, several worker agents to gather sources in parallel, and a writer agent to synthesize — coordinated over a protocol like A2A.
source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-agent_system
status
active
why_it_matters
Multi-agent systems are why agent-to-agent transport protocols exist; the agentic web is the substrate over which these agents discover and call one another.
sameAs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-agent_system
bridge_entity
a2a
last_verified
2026-07-06
md_twin
/glossary/multi-agent-system.md

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