The Ministry of Digital Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade have begun developing regulations for the implementation of AI agents in industrial software. The focus is on creating unified standards designed to prevent situations where vendors block the integration of third-party intelligent systems, while simultaneously stimulating the development of national, sovereign artificial intelligence.
Essence of the initiative and timelines
The agencies are tasked with presenting to the government by December 1, 2026, a list of open protocols through which AI agents will be able to interact with industrial software. This is a key step toward eliminating "digital barriers" when software manufacturers restrict access to their systems, forcing clients to use exclusively proprietary solutions.
The AI agent itself is defined as an autonomous software system capable of independently operating in a digital or physical environment to achieve set goals. In industry, such programs are already being used to accelerate technological processes, work with design documentation, plan procurement, and maintain internal systems.
Notably, the most mature agent implementations today are concentrated in customer service, software development, finance, retail, and telecommunications. In the industrial sector, full-fledged AI agents remain rare, and this cannot yet be called widespread practice.
Market and current state
According to analyst estimates, the share of solutions with real agent functionality in the Russian software registry is only about 5% — that is approximately 11.9 thousand developers and more than 32.3 thousand registered products. For comparison, globally this figure among all AI programs reaches 39%. The potential for growth is obvious.
The Russian corporate AI agent market could reach approximately 30 billion rubles in 2026. However, experts note that developing and debugging software with an embedded agent is more expensive, as is its operation. Nevertheless, the time savings from automation ultimately outweigh the costs of owning such systems.
One of the interlocutors involved in discussing the measure called the initiative more of an antitrust effort aimed at protecting competition, while another clarified that the document is still being refined. The Ministry of Digital Development emphasizes: there is no talk of mandatory integration into all industrial software — what matters is compatible application taking into account enterprise objectives and security requirements.
My view: This is a timely and strategically important step. Without unified interaction protocols, the AI agent market risks remaining fragmented, and major vendors will continue creating closed ecosystems. Standardization here is not just a technical formality, but a foundation for healthy competition and accelerated adoption of autonomous technologies in the real sector of the economy.