The reality with releases like this is that I'm 90% sure most Google bigwigs have never heard of it, and it's misleading to label it as "Google's" in the title.
Yes, it was developed by Google employees, that does not imply it has the full backing of Google, or Deepmind, or GCP. Notably, the website doesn't seem to claim this either.
It is on Google's github <a href="https://github.com/google/ax" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/google/ax and the title comes from there.
While this one seems like an official Google project, some other projects are not, even if it is on github.com/google
A random example E.g <a href="https://github.com/google/filament#disclaimer" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/google/filament#disclaimer
This is not an officially supported Google product.
Fair enough, I missed that specific line. The point still stands that I wouldn't expect this to have GDM leadership backing. (If you're planning to use this at all, that matters for how much faith you should have in the product.)
it's built on top of <a href="https://github.com/agent-substrate/substrate" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/agent-substrate/substrate which is not on Google github.
Agent Substrate is being moved to CNCF: <a href="https://github.com/cncf/sandbox/issues/523" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/cncf/sandbox/issues/523
the repo description <a href="https://github.com/google/ax" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/google/ax is "Google's open agentic orchestrator"
for comparison/contrast, another very related Google project (one employee) on one of their github orgs that comes with the following disclaimer
> This is not an officially supported Google product. This project is not eligible for the Google Open Source Software Vulnerability Rewards Program.
The project that ax builds on top of does have that disclaimer, and sits on a non-google organisation <a href="https://github.com/agent-substrate/substrate" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/agent-substrate/substrate
Substrate is in the process of being donated to the CNCF as a vendor-neutral common ground (similar to K8s). (The agent-substrate org is currently Google's, but that will change).
I have no insider knowledge but <a href="https://x.com/rakyll" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/rakyll is working on it and she is tweeting about it and I got the impression there is a quite a team behind it. It looks like an effort in GCP.
Yes, and one thing to understand about Google is that no AI framework or tool is guaranteed to survive unless it has the explicit backing of Google Deepmind.
"Effort in GCP" is a red flag. (See Gemini CLI, which was shut down in favor of Antigravity CLI.)
And anyone who bothers to just do a side-by-side feature comparison can immediately see how many features antigravity is still missing compared to Gemini CLI even today.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the co-creators of this project.
AX is a layer that is closer to job orchestration, Agent Substrate. It's NOT an agentic framework. We use Antigravity for a few generative features but are abstracting away some of these components so anyone can bring their own. AX is trying to solve some tedious things everyone has to deal with. Layering execution with the underlying stateful worker, wiring up the network correctly, providing sub "task" identity, provisioning the right environment, proving stateful branching, auto discovery.
We want to keep Agent Substrate free of generative features and still need a layer above for some integrations that require agentic concepts and identity.
Google compute services are under GCP and I work on Kubernetes. So the comparison with Gemini CLI is not relevant here.
Yeah, anyone should think of this as an experimental side project that may be forgotten in 15min and make careful decisions about using them in production environments.
We have used a few of Google's (smaller) open source projects, and in the last 2-3 years most of them are getting fewer updates if any updates at all. Some became very bad tech debt and we had to spend a lot of time migrating them.
Of course, that is the nature of open source projects (written in the license terms), and there is nothing to complain. But it's important to point out these days Google's open source project are not any more trustworthy than a one man's project in terms of support and maintainability. Personally I would stay away from them as far as possible. Especially if you look at what happened to Android, Gemini CLI etc.
(To be honest, even if it were officially supported by Google, that barely means anything. <a href="https://killedbygoogle.com/" rel="nofollow">https://killedbygoogle.com/)
Mond_ · · focus · HN ↗
Yes, it was developed by Google employees, that does not imply it has the full backing of Google, or Deepmind, or GCP. Notably, the website doesn't seem to claim this either.
foota · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
Stagnant · · focus · HN ↗
yla92 · · focus · HN ↗
A random example E.g <a href="https://github.com/google/filament#disclaimer" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/google/filament#disclaimer
This is not an officially supported Google product.
welhoilija · · focus · HN ↗
Mond_ · · focus · HN ↗
ShinyLeftPad · · focus · HN ↗
jcw90210 · · focus · HN ↗
varun_ch · · focus · HN ↗
verdverm · · focus · HN ↗
> This is not an officially supported Google product. This project is not eligible for the Google Open Source Software Vulnerability Rewards Program.
<a href="https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/scion" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/scion
mpeg · · focus · HN ↗
ahmedtd · · focus · HN ↗
ptone · · focus · HN ↗
mynegation · · focus · HN ↗
Mond_ · · focus · HN ↗
"Effort in GCP" is a red flag. (See Gemini CLI, which was shut down in favor of Antigravity CLI.)
panarky · · focus · HN ↗
Plant many flowers, keep the ones that bloom and stop watering the ones that don't.
Mond_ · · focus · HN ↗
ychnd · · focus · HN ↗
fg137 · · focus · HN ↗
And anyone who bothers to just do a side-by-side feature comparison can immediately see how many features antigravity is still missing compared to Gemini CLI even today.
rakyll · · focus · HN ↗
AX is a layer that is closer to job orchestration, Agent Substrate. It's NOT an agentic framework. We use Antigravity for a few generative features but are abstracting away some of these components so anyone can bring their own. AX is trying to solve some tedious things everyone has to deal with. Layering execution with the underlying stateful worker, wiring up the network correctly, providing sub "task" identity, provisioning the right environment, proving stateful branching, auto discovery.
We want to keep Agent Substrate free of generative features and still need a layer above for some integrations that require agentic concepts and identity.
Google compute services are under GCP and I work on Kubernetes. So the comparison with Gemini CLI is not relevant here.
esseph · · focus · HN ↗
Google has around 200,000 employees. They probably haven't heard of most things Google releases.
dudus · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/agent-executor-googles-distributed-agent-runtime" rel="nofollow">https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/a...
fg137 · · focus · HN ↗
We have used a few of Google's (smaller) open source projects, and in the last 2-3 years most of them are getting fewer updates if any updates at all. Some became very bad tech debt and we had to spend a lot of time migrating them.
Of course, that is the nature of open source projects (written in the license terms), and there is nothing to complain. But it's important to point out these days Google's open source project are not any more trustworthy than a one man's project in terms of support and maintainability. Personally I would stay away from them as far as possible. Especially if you look at what happened to Android, Gemini CLI etc.
(To be honest, even if it were officially supported by Google, that barely means anything. <a href="https://killedbygoogle.com/" rel="nofollow">https://killedbygoogle.com/)
Havoc · · focus · HN ↗