Introduction: The Rise of AI Agents and the Impact of DeepSeek
Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents are becoming a key force in reshaping the internet landscape. From the super platforms of Web2 to the decentralized networks of Web3, AI agents are redefining the way humans interact with the digital world. The latest catalyst for this trend is DeepSeek.
In recent years, tech giants have been betting on AI, trying to enhance user experience with smarter algorithms, but the real turning point came after DeepSeek was widely integrated. From WeChat to Baidu, from search engines to enterprise applications, the rapid penetration of this model has made AI no longer just an add-on feature in closed corporate systems, but a core engine driving information flow.
What's more worth noting is that this trend is expanding from Web2 to Web3. Decentralized protocols, on-chain smart applications, and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are beginning to explore how to use open-source AI agents to optimize the decentralized experience. Unlike the dominance of tech giants in Web2, Web3's AI agents may mean more openness, transparency, and even independence from traditional internet platforms.
As Web2 and Web3 are both accelerating the adoption of DeepSeek, we have to ponder a question: How will the future Web3, empowered by AI agents, evolve into a new form? This concerns not only technology, but also the underlying logic of the internet, as well as the reshaping of information production, dissemination, and storage.
Web2 Giants Integrate DeepSeek: Tencent and Baidu's Strategic Deployments
When DeepSeek emerged as a hot AI technology, Web2 giants reacted swiftly and decisively. Tencent and Baidu, as the tech giants in China, have almost simultaneously integrated DeepSeek into their core businesses to ensure they maintain a leading position in the next round of AI competition. However, this race for AI agents is not just about embracing new technology, but also a correction of their old strategies.
Tencent's WeChat has already started integrating DeepSeek in its beta version, which means its search function may undergo a qualitative leap. In the past, WeChat's search has been relatively closed, but the addition of DeepSeek makes information acquisition within the social ecosystem more intelligent. The penetration of AI agents may also further extend to mini-programs, video accounts, and other businesses, allowing WeChat to take a critical step in its "super app" strategy. If Tencent deepens its cooperation with DeepSeek, it may also deploy AI agents in cloud computing and enterprise AI services to counter Alibaba and ByteDance's leading positions in these areas.
In comparison, Baidu's integration of DeepSeek seems more like "getting up early but arriving late". Baidu had invested billions of RMB as early as 2019 to develop its own AI large model "Wenxin Yiyan", but its market performance has been far behind OpenAI's ChatGPT, and it has not even formed a dominant advantage in the domestic market. Now, the emergence of DeepSeek has forced Baidu to quickly adjust its strategy and catch up with the AI agent trend. Baidu's search engine business has always relied on its self-developed natural language processing technology, and the capabilities of DeepSeek can significantly improve Baidu's search experience in content understanding, intelligent summarization, and precise recommendation, but it also exposes Baidu's previous lag in AI model commercialization.
Meanwhile, the competition of AI large models is far from over, with Elon Musk's Grok 3 about to be released. On February 16, Musk announced on X that Grok 3 will be officially released and demonstrated live at 12 noon Beijing time on February 19. Musk even boasted that Grok 3 will be the "smartest AI on Earth". Compared to DeepSeek, Grok 3 has the social data stream of the X platform, which may give it an advantage in real-time information processing and social context understanding. If its cost is low enough, it is likely to be adopted by more Web3 projects, becoming another AI agent choice in the blockchain ecosystem.
The rise of DeepSeek has forced Tencent and Baidu to quickly adjust their AI strategies, and the release of Grok 3 may further disrupt the market landscape. The AI agent competition in Web2 has entered a white-hot stage, and this trend is also spreading to Web3. In the decentralized world, how will the role of AI agents evolve? This concerns not only technology, but will also determine the future direction of Web3 ecosystem intelligence.
Web3 AI Agent Trends: The Fusion of Decentralization and Open-Source
If the AI agent competition in Web2 is a race of technology between tech giants, the AI agent trend in Web3 is more like an experiment of decentralization and open-source collaboration. The rapid rise of DeepSeek has forced Web2 players to re-evaluate the value of AI agents, and Web3 projects are also quickly following up, trying to replicate this model in the decentralized ecosystem.
The MAP Protocol Foundation's integration of DeepSeek is a clear signal of this trend. As a cross-chain interoperability protocol, MAP Protocol's main goal is to break down the barriers between blockchains, and the introduction of DeepSeek means it hopes to add stronger AI decision-making capabilities to cross-chain interactions. In the future, cross-chain bridges may evolve from simple asset circulation tools to AI-driven smart interaction networks, making decentralized transactions, identity verification, privacy computing, and other applications more intelligent.
This trend is not an isolated case. Decentralized storage, DeFi, blockchain games, DAOs, and other fields are all exploring the application of AI agents, and their development paths in Web3 are fundamentally different from the AI agent systems in Web2.
First, decentralized AI agents mean stronger privacy protection. In the Web2 world, the training data of AI models is highly concentrated in the hands of a few companies, and users can only accept the control of platform algorithms. In Web3, decentralized AI agents can use decentralized computing (such as FHE, MPC) and zero-knowledge proofs to ensure that user data is not abused, while still providing intelligent services. If this model is implemented, it will greatly improve the credibility of AI in decentralized finance (DeFi) and identity management.
Secondly, the power of open-source AI agents will be further unleashed in Web3. DeepSeek itself, as an open-source model, has already prompted a large number of developers to optimize based on its capabilities. In the Web3 world, DAO organizations and open-source communities may build decentralized AI networks based on similar AI architectures, rather than solely relying on models provided by tech giants. In the future, we may see more Web3-native open-source AI agents, such as smart routing AI for decentralized trading, AI decision engines for DAO governance systems, or even NPC AI in blockchain games, all of which will be driven by the community rather than traditional enterprises.
The core of AI agents is to give computing systems higher autonomous decision-making capabilities, and in Web3, the way this capability is released determines the future development model of the decentralized ecosystem. The rise of DeepSeek means that AI is becoming the new infrastructure of the internet, and how Web3 can leverage this trend is still being explored. Next, we will discuss how DeepSeek can play a role in the Web3 ecosystem and the potential transformations it may bring.
The Impact of DeepSeek on Web3: Technology Integration and Ecosystem Building
The rise of DeepSeek not only changes the AI strategies of Web2 giants, but also triggers a new wave of technology integration in the Web3 ecosystem. Unlike traditional Web2 applications, the core of Web3 lies in decentralization, open protocols, and on-chain trust mechanisms, and the addition of AI agents is quietly rewriting this model, bringing new possibilities to areas such as smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi), and cross-chain interoperability.
Technology Integration: AI-Driven Decentralized Intelligence
Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified terms translated as requested: In the current blockchain ecosystem, although smart contracts are powerful, they still face the problems of fixed logic and lack of proactive reasoning ability. For example, the liquidation mechanism in DeFi protocols and the voting strategies in on-chain governance often rely on preset parameters rather than self-adaptive adjustments. The introduction of DeepSeek means that Web3 smart contracts can leverage the computational capabilities of AI agents to achieve more flexible and efficient automated decision-making. Taking decentralized exchanges (DEXs) as an example, DeepSeek can act as the core component of on-chain smart market making (AI MM), analyzing market liquidity in real-time and adjusting the parameters of trading pairs to improve capital efficiency. In the field of cross-chain interoperability, DeepSeek's AI agent functionality can optimize the security of bridge networks and even realize intelligent path planning, automatically selecting the optimal cross-chain solution. Furthermore, DeepSeek's technology can be combined with zero-knowledge proofs (ZK), homomorphic encryption (FHE), and decentralized computing to build more secure decentralized AI agents. This allows Web3 applications to enjoy high-quality AI reasoning capabilities while ensuring user data privacy, breaking the binary opposition between decentralized AI and data security. Ecosystem Building: Synergistic Evolution of AI and Web3 The addition of DeepSeek is also reshaping the Web3 ecosystem, making AI agents no longer just a single tool, but a core infrastructure. For example, as the application of AI agents in on-chain finance, NFT markets, and DAO governance gradually increases, a complete "AI-empowered Web3" ecosystem is taking shape. In the field of chain games (GameFi), DeepSeek can help game developers build more intelligent NPC interaction systems, giving AI characters in the decentralized world more natural dialogue and behavior patterns, making the metaverse experience more immersive. In decentralized governance (DAO), the capabilities of AI agents can be used to analyze community proposals, automatically filter high-quality voting suggestions, and even provide intelligent on-chain governance optimization solutions. This trend may give rise to a batch of AI-driven Web3 infrastructure, such as:- AI-driven on-chain search engines: Web3 currently lacks an efficient search engine like Google, and DeepSeek's technology can help establish a decentralized content indexing system to make on-chain information retrieval more accurate.
- Intelligent DeFi strategy engines: Using AI to analyze market trends, helping users optimize lending, liquidity mining, and asset management strategies, reducing the complexity of on-chain financial operations.
- Adaptive NFT valuation systems: Combining AI computation and on-chain historical transaction data, DeepSeek can provide more accurate NFT price prediction models to enhance market liquidity.
