Compiled by: Bai Hua Blockchain

The proxy gold rush is approaching its moment of truth. With capital tightening and attention waning, the market is enforcing a simple rule: proxies must be useful, not just potentially so. Every proxy now faces two basic tests:

"Will I actually use this?"

"Are regular people (not just tech enthusiasts) really using this?" This downturn cycle is natural selection, weeding out products that can't solve real problems. The survivors won't be the most technically impressive, but the ones that truly integrate into people's lives.

01
The Inevitability of Aggregation

The arrival of OpenAI's proxy API and Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) marks a powerful shift towards integration. The era of decentralized tools is ending. These two technologies share a core vision: to aggregate everything.

1. Unified Data Access: MCP eliminates the need to integrate with each data source separately. One protocol can connect any AI to any information, whether it's your documents, databases, or real-time data streams.

2. Centralized Capabilities: Proxy APIs consolidate functions previously requiring multiple components - reasoning, tool use, web access, document search - into a single endpoint that handles complex tasks automatically. This is not just technological evolution, but the collapse of human barriers. The complex proxy ecosystem is simplifying into an aggregation layer, funneling everything into one place, one interface.

02
The Market Paradox

The "proxy market" has never made sense for practical proxies. The failure of the GPT Marketplace was not accidental, but inevitable. No one wants to constantly switch between different proxies to get a specific useful function. Yet, Character.AI has thrived with an almost identical market model. The difference lies in purpose. When personality becomes the product, not just the packaging, the market suddenly makes sense. People access Character.AI not for utility, but for connection, for the proxy itself. The destination and the tool become one. This reveals a fundamental bifurcation in the proxy economy:

Practical proxies must integrate into "backend" workflows

Personality proxies must stand out as "frontend" destinations

Personalization: A Sustainable Moat

As proxy capabilities become infrastructure, what is defensible? Not technology, but connection:

1. Visual identities that convey a sense of belonging

2. Vocal patterns that evoke familiarity

3. Knowledge that reflects your background

4. Personalities aligned with your preferences Each interaction deepens both utility and connection - creating compound value that cannot be replicated through functionality alone.

03
The Embedded Future: The Rise of Proxy Products

The collision of standardized infrastructure and personalized experiences is not creating better proxies, but proxy products. This distinction is crucial. Manus.im is a typical example of this evolution. It does not position itself as a "proxy platform", but as a productivity companion seamlessly integrated into existing workflows. The model itself is not remarkable - it quietly enhances human capabilities through tasks like email drafting, meeting summaries, and information retrieval. Manus' appeal is not in novelty, but in invisibility - it erases the boundary between tool and assistant. It embodies the core principle of practical proxies succeeding through integration into workflows. By focusing on user productivity rather than technological showmanship, Manus has captured the essence of the post-hype stage: the true usefulness that brings users back every day. This is the embedded future: proxies are no longer standalone entities, but have their proxy features woven into the DNA of products:

Invisible Infrastructure: Technology integrated into familiar workflows

Contextual Intelligence: Systems that understand your unique circumstances

Relationship-Centric Design: Interfaces that learn and adapt to your preferences Independent proxies will become relics of early experimentation - just as standalone GPS devices gave way to navigation as a smartphone feature. The winners will build proxy products, where the line between tool and assistant completely dissolves.

04
Holoworld's Strategic Vision

While others pursue text interfaces, Holoworld recognizes a fundamental truth: humans connect through visual narratives. Two insights distinguish our approach:

Production, not Generation: We don't chase one-off novelty, but build complete pipelines to produce distributable, high-quality assets

Relationships over Utility: Our personalized visual/voice proxies create an emotive front-end that captures connections, while delegating utility to a modular back-end For creators, this democratizes work that once required teams and budgets. For brands, it enables digital ambassadors that forge genuine connections. At Holoworld, we're pioneering the future where these trends converge. Our Agent Studio creates unique personality-driven visual AI companions that can generate broadcast-quality videos from simple prompts, while serving as the perfect interface for powerful AI capabilities like web search, data analysis, and task automation. Users don't just get help - they form relationships with characters they genuinely like. This is the direction the entire market is heading: intelligence embodied in the companions you connect with, not the tools you have to learn.

05
In Conclusion

The hype cycle has run its course. Technological barriers are crumbling. The question is no longer "Can we build it?" but "Will anyone care?" The winners won't be the ones who launch the most proxies, but the ones who create experiences so useful that they become invisible - complexity disappears, possibility remains. The market has spoken. Utility trumps possibility.

Link to the article: https://www.hellobtc.com/kp/du/03/5712.html