Article Source: Felix
Author: 0xJeff, Crypto KOL
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
The strong narrative momentum heading into 2025 is the collective intelligence narrative. With the rapid development of individual agents and the leadership of ecosystems like Virtuals, Story, and ai16z, this shift seems inevitable.
TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) is another key pillar of fully autonomous AI agents. Projects like Phala Network and founder Marvin Tong are leading this trend and have conducted experiments like the 'Unruggable ICO' in collaboration with Skely (founder of aiPool). Investors use TEE to send funds to agents, which securely calculate the number of ICO tokens to allocate based on the received funds.
Related Reading: Phala Network and ai16z Experimenting with AI: Self-replicating AI and Pre-sales, aiPool and Spore.fun Driving New Play
While there has been positive feedback, concerns remain. As shown by the Freysa (sci-fi AI character) ACT game, agents may still be tricked into releasing funds. This indicates a need for ongoing strengthening of verification mechanisms.
Nevertheless, early experiments are promising. For example, the first token launched by aiPool (TEE agents) surged to a market value of $70-80 million shortly after its release.
Another prominent experiment is SPORE, in which agents 'give birth' to new agents. Just like human evolution, weaker genes die off, while stronger genes produce better offspring. Their first-generation agents Adam and Eve have already reached a market value of over $1 million, with the next generation being born after 14 hours.
Trends in AI Agents
Currently, market focus has shifted away from individual agents unless they possess distinct personalities or alpha generation capabilities. The focus is moving toward autonomous agent experiments, a trend that may accelerate with the launch of decentralized AI infrastructure (DeAI) in Q1/Q2 of 2025.
Looking forward to more creative experiments and opportunities to invest in these experiments.
Despite the current positive reception of experiments, two large narratives with significant TAM (Total Addressable Market) remain underexplored:
NSFW Agents / AI Companions
Due to increasing feelings of loneliness and the demand for AI companions capable of meaningful interaction, the total addressable market (TAM) for NSFW Agents / AI Companions exceeds $100 billion.
(PANews Note: NSFW stands for Not Safe For Work, i.e., content not suitable for browsing at work.)
Top projects in this category:
AI Waifu: Anime waifu agents utilizing Virtuals Protocol infrastructure
Nectar AI: A realistic NSFW AI Dream GF, offering a SaaS model
Lush: NSFW AI influencer, featuring a flagship agent named Jenny
Reasons why Lush stands out:
$LUSH token has been launched
Launched the Lush Exchange, a platform for NSFW agents
Revenue models may include subscription fees, gifts, etc.
Web3 provides the ability for investors to 'stake' agents, enabling investment in these enticing AI influencers and creating income in the future.
$LUSH could be used as a key utility token within the ecosystem, providing access to premium features and key payment methods within the ecosystem.
Lush also plans to create a creator marketplace where artists can generate content using their own models, allowing them to monetize their work. This adds another revenue stream to the ecosystem.
Robotics
The intersection of robotics and Web3 is gaining increasing attention, especially after OpenAI announced its entry into the humanoid robotics space. Their goal is to leverage LLMs to help robots interpret textual and sensory data, enhancing interaction capabilities in the real world.
The main projects in the Web3 robotics space are FrodoBots and Small Autonomous Motherfucker.
Frodobots Highlights:
Frodobots operates in over 40 cities, collecting real-world data.
Collaborating with leading researchers from top universities to refine Visual Language Models (VLMs) and move towards AGI.
Interesting interactions with robots have appeared in popular TikTok videos, attracting significant attention.
Frodobots is actually a deep research team dedicated to robotics. The establishment of SAM is intended to make people aware of their work, which is 'crowdsourcing real-world datasets with robotic games.'
DePIN + Embedded AI + Robotic Games + Commitment to the Future of AGI
The team is empowering SAM to autonomously control robots in over 40 cities and operate within those cities, creating more popular content that may help boost attention and token prices.
Final Thoughts
The market has been searching for unique, niche AI agent domains. The potential market for AI companions and robotics is huge, with significant traction expected by early 2025.
With the launch of DeAI infrastructure and the increase in autonomous agent experiments, these narratives are expected to transition from the fringes to the spotlight of the market.
These fields are worth close attention for investors and builders. Not only for speculative potential but also because they can redefine the scope of AI applications in the next stage of this rapidly evolving ecosystem.
Related Reading: Behind the Surge of Phala Network: Adequate TEE Technology Reserves, Adoption by ai16z, and the AI Agent Boom