Author: Haotian
Whenever AI Agent framework and standards are mentioned, many people are likely to feel a sense of confusion between the demonic and the angelic. This is because the ceiling for framework development is very high, and it is possible to reach 300M in a short period of time, but once it is not up to par, the probability of the consensus collapsing and falling into the abyss is also very high.
So, why have AI Agent framework standards become a battleground, and how to judge whether the framework standards are worth investing in?
The following is my personal understanding for your reference:
1) AI Agent itself is a product of the pure Web2 Internet context, where LLMs are trained on a large amount of closed data, and eventually produce interactive AIGC applications such as ChatGPT, Claud, and DeepSeek.
Its overall focus is on "application" logic, but the issues of how agents communicate and interact, how agents establish a unified data exchange protocol, and how agents build a verifiable computational verification mechanism, etc. are inherently lacking.
The essence of the AI Agent expansion framework and standards is the evolution from centralized servers to decentralized collaborative networks, from closed ecosystems to open unified standard protocols, from single AI Agent applications to complex interconnected ecosystems in the Web3 distributed architecture.
The core logic is simple: AI Agent needs to seek commercial prospects under the Web3 modular and chain-based thinking, and the "framework standards" as a starting point need to build a distributed architecture that fits the Web3 framework, otherwise it will just be the Web2 application market logic of pure computing power and user experience.
So, AI Agent framework and standards have become the battleground of this round of AI + Crypto narrative fever, and the imagination space is really unspeakable.
2) The AI Agent framework and standards are in a very early stage, and it is no exaggeration to say that now when you listen to various developers talk about their technical visions and practical roadmaps, it is no different from Vitalik Buterin coming to China 10 years ago to seek financing. Imagine, if Vitalik stood in front of you 10 years ago, how would you judge him?
1. Look at the charisma of the founders, which is consistent with the logic of most first-round angel investments "investing in people", for example, when Shaw was criticized for being a big mouth, if you saw his sincere interaction with the community, you would have hugged the ai16z; or Swarms' Kye Gomez always maintained a technical discussion attitude even when facing various FUDs and scams, wouldn't that move you?
2. Look at the technical quality, although the facade can come from decoration, but decoration also requires cost, a project with good technical quality is worth FOMO, worth the "donation" mentality to invest, and worth the effort to follow up and study. For example: Github code quality, developer open source community Reputation, whether the technical architecture logic is self-consistent, whether the technical framework has already been applied, the degree of hardness of the technical white paper content, etc.
3. Look at the narrative logic, the AI Agent track currently has a gradually "chain-based" narrative direction, you will find that more and more old chains are embracing the support of the AI Agent narrative, of course, the original ElizaOS, arc, Swarms, REI and other major framework directions will also explore the "chain-based" possibilities; for example, Focai is a project that the community has explored to build the "chain-based" ElizaOS framework. Good narrative logic has inherent momentum, because it carries the expectations of the entire Crypto market. If a project jumps out to solve the AI problems that even Web2 has not been able to solve in the short term, do you believe it?
4. Look at the ecosystem landing, the framework standards are indeed very upstream, in most cases, it is better to abstract the framework standards after having a single AI Agent, for example, zerebro then launched zerePy, the framework will empower the single AI Agent, naturally stronger than a new framework coin to split the consensus cohesion; but a framework and standard that comes out of nowhere, no matter how big the pie is drawn, you have to look at the actual implementation of the AI Agent engineering (the team's execution and iteration speed), whether there is ecosystem landing and other subsequent performance, which is the lifeline of the project's sustainable growth.
In short, the current framework and standard battle is to lock in who will be the EVM, and who will be the high-performance SVM that is superior to EVM in the next round of AI Agent narrative, of course, in this process, a Cosmos IBC may come out, and then a whole set of Move system new DeFi paradigm, and a parallel EVM, a real-time large-scale concurrent layer2... Imagine how long this road will be?
Frameworks and standards will continue to emerge, and they will be stronger and stronger, it is difficult to judge and choose.
I only look at the activity level of the developers and the actual delivery results of the project. If they can't deliver the answer sheet, the short-term surge is just illusory, if I see the "certainty", it's not too late to get on board, the ceiling valuation of AI Agent can reach the "public chain" level, there may be opportunities over 10B, no need to rush.
3) The boundaries of AI Agent framework and standards are very blurred, for example, the ElizaOS framework standard can only be defined as the spiritual totem of the developer community before platformization, and its value spillover can only be taken over by ai16z; again, the Game framework standard is still playing in the closed-source Virtual mode, which is slightly different from the mainstream open-source composite architecture;
In addition, ElizaOS framework is the current top one, but there is an independent ELIZA, I don't know how to bind the relationship; arc RIG framework has a good fundamentals, but the application of Rust language to the AI Agent field to drive performance, always feels too advanced; Swarms' technical quality is not bad, but the FUD and turbulent start, as well as the plunge to the point of panic, are beyond expectation; REI's interesting attempt to reconcile the blockchain certainty and Agent execution probability, but the technical direction is also too advanced, etc.
The above are some framework and standards that are recognized by the market as having "technical quality", and there are still many others such as Nexus, LangGraph, Haystack, AgentFlow, etc. Too many projects claiming to be framework standards, but whether they are touting low-code convenient deployment, or native multi-chain inheritance, or other enterprise-level customized business potential, or even AI Metaverse, etc.
It shows the "no standard" feature of the current framework standards, just like Vitalik proposed to expand Ethereum, which led to the emergence of Plasma, Rollup, Validium, Parallel and other exploration directions, but in the end, only Rollup became the mainstream.
