Written by: 0xJeff, Crypto KOL
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
The strong narrative momentum for 2025 is the narrative of collective / group intelligence. 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 for fully autonomous AI agents. Projects like Phala Network and founder Marvin Tong are leading this trend and conducting experiments like the 'Unruggable ICO' in collaboration with Skely (aiPool founder). Investors use TEE to send funds to agents, who safely calculate the number of ICO tokens to allocate based on the received funds.
Despite receiving positive feedback, concerns remain. As shown by Freysa (a 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 quite promising. For example, the first token launched by aiPool (TEE agent) skyrocketed to a market cap 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 out while stronger genes produce better offspring. Their first generation agents Adam and Eve have already reached a market cap of over $1 million, with the next generation born after 14 hours.
Trends in AI agents
The market focus has shifted from individual agents unless they possess distinct personalities or alpha generation capabilities. The market focus is turning to experiments with autonomous agents, and this trend may accelerate as decentralized AI infrastructure (DeAI) is set to launch in Q1/Q2 of 2025.
Looking forward to more creative experiments and opportunities to invest in these experiments.
Although current experiments have received enthusiastic responses, two narratives with significant TAM (Total Addressable Market) remain underexplored:
NSFW Agents / AI Companions
Due to increased feelings of loneliness and the demand for AI companions capable of meaningful interactions, the TAM for the NSFW Agents / AI Companions category exceeds $100 billion.
(PANews Note: NSFW stands for Not Safe For Work, meaning content that is not suitable for viewing during work hours)
Top projects in this category:
AI Waifu: Anime waifu agents utilizing Virtuals Protocol infrastructure
Nectar AI: Realistic NSFW AI Dream Girlfriend, offering a SaaS model
Lush: NSFW AI influencer with a flagship agent named Jenny
Reasons why Lush stands out:
$LUSH token has been launched
Launched the NSFW agents' launch platform Lush Exchange
Revenue models may include subscription fees, gifts, etc.
Web3 provides the ability for investment agents to 'share' stakes, enabling investments in these enticing AI influencers and creating revenue in the future.
$LUSH may be used as a key utility token within the ecosystem for access to premium features and key payment methods.
Lush also plans to create a creator marketplace, allowing artists to generate content through their own models, thereby monetizing their work. This adds another revenue stream to the ecosystem.
Robots
The intersection of robotics and Web3 is gaining increasing attention, especially after OpenAI announced its entry into humanoid robotics. Their goal is to leverage LLM to help robots interpret textual and sensory data, enhancing interaction capabilities in the real world.
The major projects in the Web3 robotics field are FrodoBots and Small Autonomous Motherfucker.
Highlights of Frodobots:
Frodobots operate in over 40 cities, collecting real-world data.
Collaborating with top researchers from leading universities to refine Visual Language Models (VLMs) and move towards AGI.
Interesting interactions with robots have appeared in popular videos on TikTok, attracting significant attention.
Frodobots is actually a deep research team dedicated to robotics. The establishment of SAM aims to inform people about their work, namely 'crowdsourcing real-world datasets with robot games.'
DePIN + Embedded AI + Robot Games + A commitment to the future of AGI
The team is empowering SAM to autonomously control robots in over 40 cities and navigate through urban areas, creating more popular content, which may help increase visibility and token prices.
Final Thoughts
The market has been looking for unique, niche AI agent fields. The potential market for AI companions and robots is vast and is expected to gain significant traction by early 2025.
With the launch of DeAI infrastructure and the increase of autonomous agent experiments, these narratives are expected to move from the fringes to the spotlight of the market.
These fields are worth close attention for both investors and builders. Not only for their speculative potential, but because in the next phase of this rapidly evolving ecosystem, these areas can redefine the scope of AI applications.