Original title: AI Agent Trends: Beyond AI Slop Bots
Original author: 0xJeff ( @Defi0xJeff )
Compiled by: Asher ( @Asher_0210 )
As global economic uncertainty intensifies, market sentiment continues to be sluggish, and Web3 AI remains one of the most reflexive growth tracks. The rapid advancement of AI innovation (such as the layout of technology giants such as OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Nvidia, and Alibaba) has kept it in the spotlight.
Currently, the total market value of the AI sector has rebounded to $6 billion recently after falling to a low of $4 billion in March. Despite the pressure on the overall market environment, there are still teams that insist on exploring AI Agent scenarios suitable for the crypto ecosystem. From the early rampant conversational AI assistants to todays more focused solutions to practical problems, some new trends have emerged:
Sports analysis and automated betting: AI Agents analyze event data in real time and make betting decisions autonomously;
Trading assistance and execution: Intelligent assisted AI Agent can analyze market trends and execute complex transactions;
DeFi yield optimization: The proxy system can adjust stablecoin lending strategies in real time to optimize yields.
DeFAI’s transformation: from abstraction layer to “Alpha discovery layer”
Earlier this year, the hot trend in DeFAI was to build ChatGPT-style interfaces as the interaction layer between users and DeFi protocols. However, practice has shown that simply providing a conversational interface does not lead to a good user experience. The problem is that most teams have not invested enough in the reasoning layer (understanding user intent) and the execution layer (optimizing execution paths), resulting in AI agents still relying on users additional judgment when providing strategy recommendations. For example, instead of using AI agents to select the optimal transaction path, it is better to use mature tools such as Defillama Aggregator, Across, or Pendle directly.
Therefore, many projects are transforming to the Alpha Discovery Layer, which is to help users discover the most valuable information in the market. In a market environment where information is scarce, finding the best gold digging point is the key. For example:
On-chain data analysis: Track smart wallets, fund flows, and obtain leading signals;
Information mining on social platforms: Analyze hot topics on X, Telegram, and Discord to capture trends;
High-end risk management: such as GigabrainGG , which provides institutional-level trading signals.
At present, it has not yet been confirmed that existing AI agents can stably provide excess Alpha, but some early results have begun to show their value.
Multimodal/Multichannel AI Agent
Traditional ChatGPT-style interaction is not suitable for all scenarios. Web3 AI Agent is exploring new ways of interaction to make it more naturally integrated into users daily workflows.
Direct interaction with X platform: The cryptocurrency community is mainly active on X platform, so agents like Clanker and Bankr are providing services directly through X platform, simplifying the operation path for users;
Discord Voice Commands: AgentTank allows users to control AI to perform on-chain tasks directly through voice in Discord, achieving more efficient collaboration;
Web3 Browsing and Execution: Since many encrypted websites do not provide APIs, Computer Use Agent can simulate human operations, automatically navigate between different websites, grab data and execute transactions.
This type of multimodal AI agent is redefining the user experience of Web3, making AI a true part of the transaction and research process.
Virtuals: The core platform of the AI Agent ecosystem
Virtuals AI Agent tokenization platform has been running for 6 months. Although the overall ecosystem market value has declined due to market fluctuations, the number of its agents has increased from 50 to 716, and it is still a leader in the AI Agent field. Currently, the most active application scenarios on Virtuals include:
GambleFAI: Such as Billy Bets , which performed well in the AI betting market and even entered the top eight of the ProphetX prediction competition, with an ROI of up to 30%;
Sports analysis: such as HeyTracyAI , which provides AI-driven analysis and commentary for NBA games;
Robotics and Embedded AI: SAM promotes the development of Embodied AI, with the goal of building a decentralized AI computing ecosystem similar to Bittensor;
Alpha Discovery: Such as aixbt and Acolyt , focusing on on-chain data analysis and transaction signal provision.
Virtuals is also developing the Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP), which aims to allow AI agents to work together to create a more efficient economic system. The first two application scenarios may be agent hedge funds and agent media centers.
Bittensor as AI Infrastructure
Bittensor, whose token is Tao, is experiencing a new wave of demand growth. Previously, many users only used TAO for staking on the Root Network, but now more people are willing to invest TAO in tokens of specific subnets to support specific AI applications.
The dTAO model launched in February: TAO inflation allocation is determined by the market, not by validator weight. This means that high-value subnets recognized by the market will receive more TAO incentives;
Growth in actual applications: Subnets such as SN6 , 41 , and 44 are supporting consumer-grade AI agents such as Billy Bets and DKING , expanding the actual application scenarios of Bittensor.
ElizaOS V2 and new Launchpad platform Autofun
ElizaOS has always been one of the most popular AI agent development frameworks. Its V2 version is about to be released, and the new Launchpad platform Autofun will be launched within two weeks. There are already 15 projects ready to join the ecosystem.
ElizaOS current status: Currently has 15.3k GitHub Stars, 5k Forks, and its market influence continues to expand;
AI Agent Fund Management Issues: Sentient recently released research revealing security vulnerabilities in fund management of AI Agents such as ElizaOS, which also highlights the need for stronger security measures in this area.
Despite the challenges, ElizaOSs ecosystem is still growing rapidly, and its decentralized GPU hosting solution Comput3 AI will also be launched on the Autofun platform.
summary
AI Agent is still one of the most promising tracks in Web3. It not only brings together innovations in AI and encryption, but also has the potential to reshape the productivity and working methods of the entire industry. From AI trading assistants to cross-chain information capture, from revenue optimization to automatic execution, AI is bringing a new paradigm to Web3.
It’s like the Internet boom of the 1990s, but on a much larger scale and with a more far-reaching impact. For early adopters, now is the best time to get in.
