Near Protocol has unveiled a new crosschain AI agent in alpha that can launch memecoins in seconds and search the web to buy products for fiat.

Additional functionality coming soon is expected to enable users to book flights or order takeaway food on Web2 sites.

The NEAR.AI Assistant was launched by co-founder Illia Polusukhin at the Redacted conference in Bangkok on Oct. 10 local time, where the protocol has also announced an ambitious plan to build the world’s largest open-source AI model. 

Polusukhin demonstrated the capabilities of the AI Assistant by using it to spin up a backstory, website and logo for a new Frog memecoin and then instantly launched it on Near’s version of Pump.fun.

Near co-founder Illia Polusukhin speaking at Redacted in Bangkok. Source: Cointelegraph

The assistant was also able to search the web for a custom T-shirt printer and create a mock website interface on the fly to make the process of selecting and buying Near merchandise T-shirts via a third party easier.

Polusukhin, who was one of the authors of the groundbreaking Transformer research that led to ChatGPT, told Cointelegraph that while using the assistant to book flights was not available in the alpha, “we have a prototype of that, but it’s not live yet.”

“But this is an open platform. Anybody can go right now and add more agents, for example, booking flights, and it will effectively start working in everybody’s assistant,” he said.

“So part of our launch is to showcase what’s possible, and then let people go build lots of different integrations.”

Near Intents

What makes Near’s AI Assistant unique among current AI agents is chain abstraction technology that enables users to swap any asset to any other simply by signing a transaction.

Called Near Intents and available in beta with trading limits, it currently enables native asset swaps between Bitcoin, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base and Near Protocol (NEAR).

But it has the potential to connect any chain using any wallet, and it can provide swaps to fiat via a market maker, which opens up Web2 shopping for the agent.

Alex Shevchenko, the founder of Aurora Labs, told Cointelegraph that Solana and Telegram Open Network would be added before the end of the year, followed by Dogecoin (DOGE), BNB (BNB), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), XRP (XRP) and Tron (TRON). Intents bring blockchains without smart contracts into the world of DeFi.

Alex Shevchenko, Founder, Aurora Labs speaking at Redacted in Bangkok. Source: Cointelegraph

Unlike other crosschain protocols, Intents does not use atomic swaps or an intermediary asset such as THORChain (RUNE) on THORChain, Instead, smart contracts on Near communicate via chain signatures.

Shevchenko demonstrated the technology on stage by plugging in a MetaMask wallet, swapping between Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), before then swapping again into Bitcoin. The transaction settled on Near but was able to be instantly withdrawn to a Bitcoin wallet. 

AI agents talking to AI agents

While the immediate use case is swapping native tokens, Shevchenko the Intents protocol had been designed to enable AI agents to communicate and coordinate to share tasks.

“An AI agent can understand that: ‘OK I don’t know how to open for you a Revolut account, but maybe there is an agent who is able to do this?’ So then they need to figure out how to create an Intent. So one AI agent is saying [to another AI agent], ‘OK, I would like you, for this price, to open up a bank account for my user.’”

Presentation slide showing a planned roadmap for Near Intents. Source: Cointelegraph

The AI agents would make an agreement, including dispute resolution, and then pay in the required currency. 

On the back end, market makers ensure the trades go through. This enables them to tap into the liquidity on centralized platforms such as Binance. Current market makers include Peanut Trade, with G20 coming on board soon. 

However, the technology is open source and available to be built upon, incorporated into any wallet, and allows the use of any market maker.

“This is a reference implementation of the interface. All of the builders who are building their own interfaces can take it and include it,” he said. 

Later at Redacted, Kendall Cole from Proximity Labs said chain abstraction enabled new use cases for Bitcoin in DeFi. He connected a Bitcoin wallet to a fork of the Burrow lending platform and was able to borrow against the Bitcoin collateral. Eventually, he said that users would be able to borrow against their entire portfolio of assets. 

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