Agents idling while they wait on humans push Kubernetes to hand back unused resources

Google Cloud has donated Agent Substrate, gVisor and OpenRL to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and is tuning Kubernetes for agentic AI workloads rather than building a new stack, cloud therapist Bobby Allen said at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA. The projects target efficiency: agents sit idle for long stretches waiting on human input, and the donated work aims to return those unused resources during downtime. Allen said Kubernetes, now 11 to 12+ years old, gives enterprises a platform for this shift without retooling or replatforming everything.

Agents idling while they wait on humans push Kubernetes to hand back unused resources Agentic AI workloads are handing Kubernetes an unexpected second act https://siliconangle.com/2026/11/12/agentic-ai-systems-push-kubernetes-second-act-kubeconna/ . The orchestrator once dismissed as reliable but boring is now at the center of how enterprises plan to run autonomous software. Past platform shifts, from physical servers to virtual machines and from virtual machines to containers, forced companies to wipe the slate clean and start over. This shift is different because Kubernetes was built as a platform for building platforms, according to Bobby Allen https://www.linkedin.com/in/ballen-clt/ pictured , cloud therapist at Google Cloud LLC. “Kubernetes now, 11, 12+ years in, has this whole new life,” Allen said. “You don’t need a new platform this time. … This shift doesn’t mean that you’ve got to retool and rebuild and replatform everything, and I think that could be comforting for folks to realize that they don’t have to start from scratch.” Allen spoke with theCUBE’s Rebecca Knight https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-m-knight-3667a94/ at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA https://www.thecube.net/events/linux-foundation/kubecon-cloudnativecon-na-2026 , during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how Kubernetes is recovering resources spent on idle agentic AI workloads. Disclosure below. Running agentic AI workloads in the open Google is putting that view into practice. The company has donated Agent Substrate, gVisor and OpenRL https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/containers-kubernetes/open-infrastructure-for-autonomous-agents-comes-to-cncf to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, while engineering teams are tuning Kubernetes for agents https://siliconangle.com/2026/11/12/agentic-workloads-push-google-retool-kubernetes-agents-kubeconna/ rather than building a new stack. “Google is doubling down on our commitment to not just open source but community-driven, collaborative, multiple-partner-involvement open source,” Allen said. “These concepts are foundational, but they’re important enough that we need to all contribute and shape these together.” Efficiency is a big part of the motivation. Agents spend long stretches idle while they wait for human input, and the projects aim to give those resources back during the downtime, Allen explained. “These are kind of different efforts that contribute to an open, flexible, transparent, collaborative way to make agentic workloads run better so that we can have these amazing outcomes but also be efficient with our resources,” Allen said. “We don’t want to have this sci-fi Star Trek moment where we’re stepping into the future and kill the planet.” Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA https://www.thecube.net/events/linux-foundation/kubecon-cloudnativecon-na-2026 : Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA. Sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE. 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