Vol. IV · Multi-Agent Architectures · IV.3
Conversational Multi-Agent
AutoGen's original idea: agents as speakers in a group chat, with a manager selecting the next speaker. Powerful for research; dangerous as a production bus.
6 min read
Doctrine
- If agents must talk, bound the turns and name the speaker selector in code.
- Prefer typed messages over free chat once you know the speech acts you need.
- For new Microsoft-stack work, use Agent Framework, not the AutoGen maintenance line.
From AutoGen to Agent Framework
AutoGen (2023) proved multi-agent conversation could solve tasks no single prompt could. It also produced legendary transcripts of agents complimenting each other into a timeout. Microsoft's 2026 Agent Framework keeps the useful bits — handoffs, graphs, .NET/Python parity — and drops the chatroom as the default.
Anti-patterns
- An unsupervised group chat against production tools.
- Speaker selection left entirely to an LLM with no fallback.