Author: IcoBeast.eth
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
There are a lot of exciting opportunities for the thriving AI agents, but also a lot of traps. The speed at which new agents are emerging is dizzying, as everyone is rushing to launch AI agent startup platforms to attract attention, and more importantly, platform fee revenue.
The harsh reality is that we don't know if AI agents have reached their peak, or if they have unlimited potential for the future. This doesn't mean that the conceptual framework and classification scheme are meaningless: it just means that no one can get everything right.
So what I'm going to do is outline how we should currently approach AI agents, and what that means for their potential valuation. Note that all the content in this article is not investment advice.
I believe there are currently three main categories of AI agents in the market, and this number may increase to four, but before that, let's see how the current situation is evolving.
Culture/Community Consciousness Drivers
Companion/IP Agents
Practical Agents
These categories are distinctly different. That said, real-world agents can possess elements of multiple categories. In the long run, any legitimate AI agent will possess capabilities in these three categories. I'll now explain these categories.
Culture/Community Consensus
You may already know some of these AI agents: zerebro, Fartcoin, Truth Terminal, Dolos, etc. These tokens already have fanatical followers and interact with fans on Twitter every day. These are the AI tokens that your favorite KOLs love the most.
They are shitposts, they are fun (sometimes), and they are degenerate. They are easy to understand (or at least make you think you understand them), which is why your KOL friends like them. They are essentially true AI agent memecoins. Like MOG, PEPE, SPX, these currencies exist and have value because people have a sense of belonging to owning them.
That said, I don't think these tokens can truly unleash the full power of AI. Allowing them to exist solely as interactive memecoins is almost a waste. Some have realized this: the zerebro developers are moving towards practical applications. I think this is the future of this category. Either they face a market valuation ceiling (lower than PEPE), or they can expand with collective consensus to killer use cases and raise the valuation ceiling.
I currently have very little exposure to these tokens (although I initially bought some in the range of 2 million to 10 million). I don't think they have peaked (at least in the long run), but this kind of rise is not the target I'm looking for in the early bull market. I expect very few of these agents have the potential to reach a market cap of $2 billion, many will reach 8-figure or 9-figure valuations and then languish.
Companion/IP
You've probably seen a lot of these tokens too, but may not have realized their difference from the first category. The appeal of these agents is very niche, feeling like private friends rather than belonging to a large community, think of the random agents launched on vvaifu or the character-based agents in Virtuals (AIRENE/SISAI/etc.).
I think this category overall will have much lower returns than the first category, with most not generating any interest at all. But the winners will be huge. And that's the most interesting part, finding the winners. In this category, I want to support an agent developed by someone who is fully committed.
My choices are Sploot (launched by Jonah on Virtuals, I know Jonah is a polarizing figure in crypto gaming, but he is successful and a great marketer, which is the advantage I want), Lexi (launched by Coop9000 on Virtuals, Coop9000 is deeply involved in AVAX's marketing and business development), and then the popular choice Wokie (launched by bitcoin.com on Virtuals).
Ultimately, the valuation ceiling for these characters may be in the $20-30 million range, unless someone creates a breakthrough character that captivates people.
Practical
This is the holy grail of AI agents. There are many topics to discuss on this topic, and people are developing and experimenting with new practical use cases every day.
For the past decade, we've been peddling useless utility tokens that can solve problems no one cares about. I believe AI agents are the new paradigm of utility tokens. Real technology can provide the services people truly want.
The strange thing is: if meaningless, unused utility and governance tokens can reach valuations in the billions of dollars, why can't AI agents with actual use cases?
Here are some of my favorite agents I've come across so far:
AIXBT: Absolutely the best market sentiment and momentum capture tool out there. In my opinion, its value should exceed $1 billion.
VADER: Brain games, effectively trying to establish and manage institutional-level agent investments. It's the on-chain tokenized Blackrock.
WAI Combinator: Interesting name, interesting concept (though a bit off-topic). They are building an AI incubator to help other AIs grow better. I don't know if it's effective, but they've released reports on investing in other promising AIs.
DeFi maximization: There are many teams building (and about to release) AI agents that will automatically manage yield positions for you to maximize returns. Once we can abstract away the complexity of LP management, yields will skyrocket. This concept is a money printer.
PolyAI: It's an agent that can analyze Polymarket information in real-time. It may or may not be effective, but it's really interesting.
The possibilities in this field are endless. Find exciting new practical AI agents and get in early. You'll see practical agents worth billions of dollars within 2 years.
