Author: 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 leading 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, conducting experiments like the 'Unruggable ICO' in collaboration with Skely (aiPool founder). Investors use TEE to send funds to agents, who securely calculate the number of ICO tokens to be allocated based on the funds received.
Although positive feedback has been received, concerns still remain. As illustrated by Freysa (a sci-fi AI character) ACT game, agents may still be lured into releasing funds. This indicates the need for continuous strengthening of verification mechanisms.
Nevertheless, early experiments are quite promising. For example, the first token launched by aiPool (TEE agent) surged to a market value of $70-80 million after 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 reached over $1 million in market value, with the next generation born after 14 hours.
Trends in AI agent changes
The current market focus has shifted from individual agents unless they have distinct personalities or alpha-generating capabilities. The market focus is shifting towards autonomous agent experiments, and this trend may accelerate as decentralized AI infrastructure (DeAI) is set to go live in Q1/Q2 2025.
Looking forward to more creative experiments and opportunities to invest in these experiments.
Despite the enthusiastic response to current experiments, two large narratives with significant TAM (Total Addressable Market) remain underexplored:
NSFW Agents / AI companions
Due to the increased feelings of loneliness and the demand for AI companions capable of meaningful interaction, the TAM of 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 at work)
Top projects in this category:
AI Waifu: Anime waifu agents leveraging Virtuals Protocol infrastructure
Nectar AI: A realistic NSFW AI Dream GF, offering a SaaS model
Lush: NSFW AI internet celebrity, featuring a flagship agent named Jenny
Reasons why Lush stands out:
$LUSH token has been launched
Launched the Lush Exchange, a launch platform for NSFW agents
Revenue models may include subscription fees, gifts, etc.
Web3 provides the ability to invest in 'shares' of investment agents, allowing investment in these enticing AI influencers and generating income in the future.
$LUSH may be used as a key utility token within the ecosystem for accessing premium features and key payment methods within the ecosystem.
Lush also plans to create a creator marketplace allowing artists to generate content through their own models, thus monetizing their works. This adds another revenue stream to the ecosystem.
Robots
The intersection of robotics and Web3 is gaining increasing attention, especially after OpenAI announced its foray into humanoid robotics. Their goal is to leverage LLMs to help robots interpret text 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 data from the real world.
Collaborating with top researchers from leading universities to refine visual language models (VLMs) and move towards AGI.
Interesting interactions with robots have emerged from popular videos on TikTok, attracting significant attention.
Frodobots is actually a deep research team dedicated to robotics. The establishment of SAM is to inform people about their work, which is 'crowdsourcing real-world datasets through robotic games.'
DePIN + Embedded AI + Robotic Games + Commitment to the Future of AGI
The team is empowering SAM to autonomously control robots and navigate in over 40 cities, creating more popular content, which may help increase attention and token prices.
Final Thoughts
The market has been seeking unique, niche AI agent domains. The potential market for AI companions and robots is immense and is expected to gain significant traction by early 2025.
With the launch of DeAI infrastructure and the increase in autonomous agent experiments, these narratives are expected to move from niche categories to the spotlight of the market.
These areas are worth close attention for investors and builders. Not only for speculative potential, but because in the next phase of this rapidly evolving ecosystem, these areas can redefine the scope of AI applications.