Jack Dorsey Publishes Buzz: “Identity Passport” for Every AI Agent, Rewriting the Rules for Human-Machine Collaboration

Block’s open collaboration platform Buzz is built on the decentralized protocol Nostr, where both humans and AI agents get a keypair identity, forming an auditable accountability chain. It can integrate Claude Code, Codex, and Block’s own goose framework, and is available for free download under the Apache 2.0 license.
(Background: Jack Dorsey’s latest long-form piece: AI will end “middle management,” and Block is transforming into a “micro AGI” company)
(Background add-on: Block, Jack Dorsey’s company, publicly rolled out its own AI “Builderbot” handling 15% of code work, and previously cut 4,000 employees.)

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• Background: a collaboration platform meant to compete with both Slack and GitHub
• Core logic: an identity card, not permission flags
• Slack plug-ins, vs. Buzz as a first-class citizen

Treating AI agents as coworkers is what Jack Dorsey is trying to do this time. The Bitcoin believer and Block CEO announced the open collaboration platform Buzz this morning (the 22nd) on X, putting humans and AI agents into the same channels, threads, and DMs for collaboration, while targeting Slack and GitHub.

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

Most teams treat AI agents with a bundle of API tokens plus a few permission flags. In short: the robot gets a pass, and what it can do depends on which options an admin checks.

Buzz goes the opposite way: give each agent its own independent identity—first ask “who are you,” then talk about “what can you do.”

Background: a collaboration platform meant to compete with both Slack and GitHub

Buzz is a Block-owned open-source project, and Dorsey gave it four positioning words: model-agnostic, decentralize, self-sovereign, open source.

In simple terms: not tied to a single vendor, not relying on a central server, data safeguarded by itself, and code open.

The underlying protocol is built on Nostr, a decentralized protocol where cryptographically signed event logs enable interaction. Every message includes a signature proof of who sent it, and there’s no central server that can unilaterally shut down the system.

Buzz bundles channels, threads, DMs, voice, media sharing, code repositories (Git hosting), and automated workflows into the same identity system. It’s currently a free desktop app, supporting macOS, Windows 11, and Linux, licensed under Apache 2.0, version 0.4.21, and still in an early stage.

Dorsey is blunt about it: to reduce dependency on Slack and GitHub.

Core logic: an identity card, not permission flags

Buzz’s most crucial design is to let every participant, whether a person or an agent, get a keypair identity. In simple terms: a set of digital keys that only you can use, proving “I did this.”

Agents also add one more step: a second signature that ties back to the human owner, creating a verifiable accountability chain so that each action can be traced back to “who authorized it.” The New Stack put it well: Block handed each agent a passport.

The difference from traditional approaches is in the logic of defining scope: traditional systems ask “which APIs can this program call?” Buzz asks “whose agent is this, and who is responsible.” Each agent has its own audit trail; everything it does leaves records that can be checked back. This directly targets one of the hardest problems with agentic work: when lots of agents work for you at the same time and something goes wrong, there’s often no clear answer about who’s responsible.

model-agnostic is not just a slogan. Through the Agent Client Protocol, Buzz can connect to Claude Code, Codex, and also to Block’s own goose framework—or any agent that speaks ACP. The identity system doesn’t care about the provider.

Slack plug-ins, vs. Buzz as a first-class citizen

A Slack bot is an add-on attached alongside the workspace: you bring it in, grant permissions, and if anything goes wrong you can pull it out. Buzz’s agents are first-class citizens in the workspace: they have an identity, audit records, and a responsible human guarantor. The two systems handle “when an agent makes a mistake” in completely different ways: one is pull-the-plug, the other is verify-the-credentials.

This also echoes Dorsey’s consistent organizational vision: he has repeatedly argued that AI will end middle management, and that Block is transforming into a “micro AGI” company. Buzz is like the operating system for that philosophy—decentralized, Nostr-based, self-sovereign—an extension of Dorsey’s Bitcoin faith too: what he believes in has never been that companies stand guard, but that cryptography stands guard.

Of course, with only version 0.4.21, it’s still early. Slack has tens of millions of daily active users, and GitHub is the default infrastructure for developers worldwide—moving early software to disrupt both isn’t easy.

Buzz isn’t betting on models becoming stronger; it’s betting that identity will be more durable than permissions.