Open source is eating AI: the next chapter of open source in finance starts now - see you in Toronto next week?

[Gabriele Columbro]

Dear Community, 

Every so often I feel the burning need to reach out to the Community. But this time, it's different: something has changed in the last few months, as I am sure you are all feeling. 

The AI industrial revolution means we are living in a truly transformational time for society, technology and open source itself.  And open source is, at its very core, the operating system for this next wave. The conversation is no longer just about models. It is about protocols, governance, infrastructure, interoperability, commerce. Our sister foundations, the Agentic AI Foundation, home of MCP,  and x402 foundation are just the two major examples. 

That matters enormously for financial services. Because our industry does not *just* need smarter models. We need governed models. Auditable agents. Machine-readable controls. Shared specifications. Agentic inter and intra firm workflows that can survive contact with regulators, counterparties, and reality. In other words: finance does not need AI theatre. It needs industry-grade contracts for agentic behaviour.

That is exactly where FINOS comes in. While we continue to accelerate innovation in the industry, we are uniquely positioned to help usher financial services into the era of Agentic AI — by working closely with upstream projects and our sister foundations, we can focus on something way more critical for this industry to get this revolution right: making the emerging stack usable, governable, and interoperable for one of the most connected and regulated industries on earth.

We are already seeing a glimpse of that. The FINOS AI Governance Framework is evolving from principles to practice, moving toward a governance-as-code assurance ecosystem that includes Reference Architectures, Evals and service level controls in Common Cloud Controls. With Calm, one of the fastest growing projects in our history, increasingly acting as a glue. Fluxnova has shown that our industry can still regain control of its technology destiny and collaborate strategically on production-grade infrastructure. And even TraderX is hinting at what the future may look like as the community explores a move toward a spec-driven development model — the kind of shift that starts to close the gap between requirements, architecture, controls, and code.

That is the story here. Open collaboration in this industry is central to the agentic future of finance. It is how we make that future trustworthy. And that is why next week’s OSFF Toronto matters so much. We have so much in store for next week and I hope to see so many of you there.  Yes, the talks will be great. We have some exciting announcements to share. But the workshops are where things get real.

That is where the community will shape the future of AI governance, multi-cloud controls, SDLC controls, the CDM, Fluxnova, and financial HPC. Put differently: the main stage is where we compare notes; the workshops are where we write the blueprint publicly. If you want to see where FINOS is heading, come to Toronto. If you want to help shape the industry's direction, join us for the workshops.

My overarching message doesn't change, but it's more urgent than ever: get engaged now! Adopt our projects. Join us in Toronto, then in London and New York. Help us fund the community by becoming a member, sponsor a conference, our annual research or a hackathon like DTCC.AI that produced some amazing open source tech. Become a FINOS Ambassador and help us grow meetups in local regions. Show up in GitHub. Show up in working sessions. Show up before the specs for the next wave of technology are defined for us.

And here's the kicker: one of the things I am most proud about what we built here is that open collaboration isn't a side hobby. It is leadership in public. Just look at the number of FINOS maintainers and contributors who have gone on to become Distinguished Engineers, Executive Directors, and Managing Directors while helping shape this ecosystem. Turns out building in the open is not exactly career-limiting.

This is a rare moment. The technology is moving fast and the industry is paying attention.  And FINOS is uniquely positioned to help financial services move fast. 

Let’s not watch this moment happen. Let’s build it. Openly and together.

Gab

Gabriele Columbro | Executive Director | FINOS

📱 +1 (404) 432-7652 | 🕊 @mindthegabz

   

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