Overview
- Block, the payments company founded by Jack Dorsey, has unveiled Buzz, a free and open-source platform designed for collaboration between employees and AI agents.
- Utilizing the Nostr protocol, Buzz integrates team communication, code management, and automated processes, granting each participant a unique cryptographic identity.
- Buzz is versatile, accommodating agents powered by various models, including Claude Code, Codex, and Block's proprietary goose.
Block has officially launched Buzz, a complimentary open-source platform that facilitates teamwork between human employees and AI agents in a unified workspace, as announced on Tuesday.
"we're launching BUZZ," Dorsey tweeted, introducing "a novel group chat platform for teams of diverse sizes, both human and AI," aimed at minimizing reliance on Slack and GitHub. He characterized it as "model-agnostic, decentralized, self-sovereign, and open source."
we're launching BUZZ!
a new groupchat platform for teams of people and agents of all sizes, built to reduce our dependency on slack and github. model-agnostic, decentralized, self-sovereign, and open source. 🐝https://t.co/8IaMVeTQNo
— jack (@jack) July 21, 2026
Buzz combines various communication tools such as channels, threads, direct messaging, voice calls, media sharing, code repositories, and automated workflows into a single interface that Block assures will be intuitive for users familiar with contemporary team communication platforms.
Identity for Agents
In Buzz, agents possess their own cryptographic identities and assigned permissions, allowing them to participate in discussions, review code, execute approved automations, and collaborate with human users. Both human and AI agents can work together in the same workspace, enhancing collaborative efforts.
"Every company will need a platform for collaboration between humans and agents," stated Bradley Axen, Block's director of AI capabilities, in a statement. "The key consideration is whether this platform is proprietary or open."
Buzz is adaptable to any agent or model, enabling teams to utilize agents powered by any LLM or framework, including Anthropic's Claude Code, OpenAI's Codex, and goose, an open-source agent framework that Block introduced in January 2025.
Choosing Nostr
Block selected Nostr to address what it identifies as the primary challenge in multi-agent collaboration: identity management. Each participant, whether human or agent, possesses a personal keypair, ensuring that an agent’s identity, history, and reputation can be transferred across any Nostr-compatible platform. Every interaction, including messages, reactions, workflow steps, approval reviews, and git events, is logged as a single signed event in one record, creating a hash-chain audit trail applicable to both individuals and automated processes, as detailed in the project's repository.
The code is available under an Apache 2.0 license at github.com/block/buzz, and teams have the option to self-host or utilize Block's managed service. Currently, it is in the early stages, released as version 0.4.21 with desktop versions for macOS, Windows, and Linux, while mobile clients are still in development. Despite the emphasis on decentralization, each workspace relies on a single relay, which the project describes as its "single source of truth."
Transforming the Operational Model
Employees at Block have been rethinking how teams might function when the tools no longer dictate the procedures. Lucas Isaza, who focuses on AI and product at Block, noted in a thread that traditional tools like Asana, Jira, and Linear have embedded sprints and Kanban into organizational practices, influencing how work is carried out.
A customizable workspace alleviates these limitations, he explained, suggesting that "the bottleneck shifts to the operational model." In Buzz, he mentioned, a single thread can encapsulate the diagnosis, task, solution, and relevant discussions, consolidating what previously required multiple tools into a single record of decision-making.
— Lucas (@IsazaLucas) July 21, 2026
Agents can perform user-level tasks via command-line interface commands, establish their own channels, and modify their memories, while users can create specific rules for each agent in individual channels or threads. Isaza mentioned experimenting with agents that generate a collaborative whiteboard for each thread, leading to "improved context transitions with minimal effort." Block has been testing this methodology internally for several months and has "yet to determine" the optimal model to maximize Buzz's potential, noting that most work is collaborative and "that shouldn't stop with AI."
In fact, Block developed the Buzz platform itself using agents, as Thomas Petersen, a principal designer and AI strategist at the company, revealed. Petersen stated he returned to Block with the goal of transforming "the isolated experience of working with AI agents," adding that "the entire platform" was created using agents, including its interface, which he characterized as "more refined over time than designed initially."
The Protocol Initiative
Buzz aligns with the open protocol movement that has characterized Dorsey's initiatives since departing from Twitter. He resigned from the Bluesky board in 2024 and has since supported various tools that are not controlled by any single entity, most of which are based on Nostr, the relay-based protocol he has personally financed.
This includes Bitchat, his Bluetooth mesh messaging application, which faced removal from Apple's App Store in April 2024 at the behest of the Chinese government, mirroring Beijing's 2023 ban on the Nostr-based Twitter alternative Damus. He has also invested in andOtherStuff, a nonprofit focused on developing open-source social tools.
In February, Block laid off over 4,000 employees, approximately 40% of its workforce, with Dorsey indicating at that time that AI is "transforming what it means to build and manage a company." A month later, Dorsey announced that Cash App would integrate support for stablecoins into its main payment processes, despite his earlier reservations. In April, the company reported holding 28,355 BTC valued at $2.2 billion in its proof-of-reserves documentation.