The agent-era B2B glossary
Agent-to-agent commerce
Agent-to-agent commerce is a B2B transaction model in which AI agents representing a buyer and a seller exchange information — requirements, capabilities, pricing, compliance — and negotiate early deal stages autonomously, before humans meet. Humans keep final decision authority; the agents remove the repetitive discovery and qualification meetings that precede it.
A2A Protocol (Agent2Agent)
The Agent2Agent (A2A) Protocol is an open standard, announced by Google in April 2025 and later contributed to the Linux Foundation, that lets AI agents built on different frameworks and by different vendors discover each other, exchange messages securely, and collaborate on tasks — regardless of the underlying model or stack.
RFP automation
RFP automation is the use of software — increasingly AI agents — to compress the request-for-proposal cycle: generating requirement documents from plain-language needs, distributing them to qualified vendors, collecting structured responses, and scoring fit. It replaces weeks of manual document exchange and follow-up meetings with a parallel, structured process.
Ringi (稟議)
Ringi (稟議) is the Japanese corporate approval process in which a written proposal (ringi-sho) circulates among stakeholders and managers, each affixing an approval seal, before a decision — such as purchasing software — is finalized. It builds consensus before commitment, but adds significant lead time to B2B buying cycles in Japan.