Block, the payments company led by Jack Dorsey, has unveiled Buzz, a free and open source workplace platform that places employees and AI agents in the same shared environment, with identity and communication anchored to the Nostr protocol. The release positions Buzz as a single interface for team chat, code collaboration, and automated workflows, and frames the software as model-agnostic so organizations can bring their own agents and large language models into day-to-day operations.

AI Integration

Buzz is designed to look and feel like a contemporary team messaging application while adding agent-native features. Channels, threads, direct messages, voice, media sharing, code repositories, and automation live together, allowing people and software agents to contribute inside the same conversation streams. The platform treats agents as first-class participants rather than background bots, enabling them to post, review code, execute approved commands, and join discussions under their own identities.

According to Block, each participant—human or agent—holds a unique cryptographic identity. Rather than belonging to a proprietary service, that identity is intended to be portable. In practice, this means an agent’s activity history and reputation are tied to its keypair and not locked to a single vendor’s database. In Buzz, every action—messages, reactions, code review approvals, workflow steps, and git events—is recorded as a signed event in one log, creating a hash-chain audit trail that applies the same way whether the author is a person or a process.

That framing aligns with Block’s stated goal of reducing dependency on closed platforms. Dorsey described Buzz as “model-agnostic, decentralized, self-sovereign, and open source,” and emphasized its role as an alternative to incumbent collaboration tools. The company says teams can deploy agents that run on a range of models and harnesses, including Anthropic’s Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex, and the firm’s own goose framework, which Block first released as open source in January 2025.

Technology Use Case

Buzz uses the Nostr protocol to address identity in multi-agent work. Nostr’s keypair design allows each participant—human or machine—to carry an identity beyond the boundaries of a particular app. Within Buzz, that approach underpins the audit log and the ability for agents to interact as peers with users. It also builds a foundation for cross-compatibility: because Nostr is not bound to one company’s servers, identities and event histories can, in principle, travel to any compatible system.

Block is releasing the software under the Apache 2.0 license, with the code available at github.com/block/buzz. Teams can self-host their own deployments or use a managed version offered by Block. The project is shipping as version 0.4.21, with desktop builds available for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Mobile clients are not yet complete. While the company describes the system in decentralized terms, each workspace runs on a single relay that serves as the “single source of truth,” according to the project repository.

Internally, Block has been testing workflows that place both people and agents inside the same operational threads. The company describes scenarios in which a single conversation can capture diagnosis, tasks, fixes, and the surrounding debate, replacing what might otherwise span multiple applications. Permissions are configurable: users can set rules for each agent at the channel or thread level, while agents can take user-level actions through command-line operations, create channels as needed, and update their own memories to avoid repetitive context-setting.

Rethinking the Operating Model

Block executives and employees have framed Buzz as a prompt to reconsider how teams structure work when software is not dictating a single process. Bradley Axen, who leads AI capabilities at Block, said the key question is whether the place where people and agents collaborate will be open rather than proprietary. The design of Buzz reflects that stance by separating identity from the platform itself.

Inside the company, staff have contrasted older tools that encoded rituals like sprints and Kanban with a more flexible environment where structure can be shaped to fit each task. Lucas Isaza, who works in AI and product, argued that when process is no longer rigid, the constraint shifts from tool to operating model. In Buzz, he noted, a thread can hold the end-to-end record—what went wrong, what was decided, what was done—so the reason behind a fix is preserved right alongside the work.

Isaza has experimented with agents that automatically generate shared whiteboards for threads to improve handoffs. He said Block has been testing Buzz internally for months and is still determining which approaches make the most of the platform. The team’s view is that most work is collaborative, and that collaboration can include AI without removing people from the loop.

Thomas Petersen, a principal designer and AI strategist at Block, said the company used agents throughout the development of Buzz itself. He described returning to Block to rethink the “lonely experience” of using AI agents in isolation. According to Petersen, the interface emerged through iterative contributions from agents within the same shared environment they are meant to inhabit with humans.

Industry Context

Buzz extends a broader emphasis on open protocols that has characterized Dorsey’s recent projects. After stepping away from the Bluesky board in 2024, he has supported tools that minimize platform lock-in, many of them built atop Nostr relays. That push has included Bitchat, a Bluetooth-based messenger that was ordered removed from Apple’s App Store in China in April, echoing Beijing’s earlier ban on Damus, another Nostr-based social app. He has also seeded andOtherStuff, a nonprofit aimed at open source social tools.

Block’s internal restructuring provides additional context for the company’s interest in AI-native workflows. The firm cut more than 4,000 jobs in February, a reduction of roughly 40% of staff. At the time, Dorsey argued that AI changes the nature of building and operating a company. Shortly after, Block said Cash App would add support for stablecoins within its core payment flow, even as Dorsey voiced reluctance. In April, the company disclosed holdings of 28,355 BTC in a proof-of-reserves report, valuing the position at $2.2 billion at that time.

Market Impact

While Buzz is an early-stage release, it is positioned at the intersection of AI collaboration and cryptographic infrastructure. By using Nostr for identity and event signing, the platform ties routine workplace actions—messages, reviews, automations—to verifiable records. For teams that already operate within cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystems, this approach offers alignment between the tools they use and the principles they build on. For organizations outside of those markets, Buzz presents a way to introduce agents without surrendering identity and history to a closed provider.

The project’s current state reflects its in-progress status: an open license, desktop availability across major operating systems, and a roadmap that still includes mobile support. The choice to operate each workspace on a single relay sets clear boundaries for how data is managed and where truth is recorded, while keeping the door open to portability through Nostr-compatible systems. With model-agnostic integration, teams can pair Buzz with agents running on Claude Code, Codex, or Block’s goose, adapting the platform to their preferred tooling and policies.

For Block, Buzz represents a consolidation of themes present across the company’s recent moves: a focus on Bitcoin and cryptographic primitives, an openness to stablecoin use within consumer payments, and a willingness to place AI side by side with human contributors. In practical terms, Buzz is an attempt to bring those threads into a single workplace application, where identity is cryptographic, history is signed, and agents are treated as accountable participants rather than invisible automations.