Agentic Mesh
McKinsey-coined term for an enterprise architecture where many agents from different vendors interoperate via shared protocols (A2A, MCP) without a central orchestrator.
Last updated: April 26, 2026
Definition
Agentic mesh is the term McKinsey and others have started using to describe the emerging enterprise architecture pattern where many specialized AI agents (from different teams, vendors, or even external partners) cooperate via shared protocols rather than via a single orchestrator. The mesh pattern matters because no single platform vendor will produce best-in-class agents for every use case. A finance org will end up with a SAP agent, a Salesforce agent, an internal billing agent, and a customer-facing chat agent, all needing to coordinate. A2A handles agent-to-agent communication; MCP handles agent-to-tool. Together they form the protocol substrate of the mesh.
When To Use
Think in mesh terms when designing agent strategy across an enterprise where agents will come from many sources. Use A2A and MCP as the interop layer; do not try to centralize on one vendor.
Related Terms
Building with Agentic Mesh?
I've shipped this pattern in real production systems. If you want a second pair of eyes on your architecture, that's what I do.