From dialogue assistants to intelligent execution, how will AI Agent break the deadlock next?

Bittensor is experiencing a new round of demand rise, and Virtuals and ElizaOS are also worth following.

Original Title: AI Agent Trends: Beyond AI Slop Bots

Written by: 0xJeff (@Defi0xJeff)

Compiled by: Asher (@Asher_ 0210 )

As global economic uncertainty intensifies and market sentiment remains low, Web3 AI continues to be one of the most reflexively growing sectors.

The rapid advancement of AI innovation (such as the布局 of tech giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Nvidia, Alibaba, etc.) has kept it in extremely high关注.

Currently, the total market capitalization of the AI sector has rebounded to 6 billion USD after falling to a low of 4 billion USD in March. Despite the overall market environment being under pressure, there are still teams persistently exploring AI Agent scenarios suitable for the crypto ecosystem. From the early proliferation of conversational AI assistants to today's more focused solutions addressing practical problems, some new trends have emerged:

• Sports Analysis and Automated Betting: AI Agent analyzes event data in real time and independently executes betting decisions;
• Trading Assistance and Execution: The intelligent assistant AI Agent can analyze market trends and execute complex trades;
• DeFi yield optimization: The proxy system can adjust stablecoin lending strategies in real-time to optimize the yield.

The Transformation of DeFAI: From Abstract Layer to "Alpha Discovery Layer"

Earlier this year, the popular trend of DeFAI was to build ChatGPT-style interfaces as an interaction layer between users and DeFi protocols. However, practice has shown that merely providing a conversational interface does not lead to a good user experience. The problem lies in that most teams invest insufficiently in the "reasoning layer" (understanding user intent) and the "execution layer" (optimizing execution paths), resulting in AI Agents still relying on users' additional judgment when providing strategy suggestions. For example, rather than using an AI Agent to select the optimal trading path, it is better to directly use mature tools like Defillama Aggregator, Across, or Pendle.

Therefore, many projects are transitioning to the "Alpha Discovery Layer", which helps users discover the most valuable information in the market. In a market environment where information is scarce, finding the best "gold mining point" is key. For example:

• On-chain data analysis: Track smart wallets, fund flows, and obtain leading signals;
• Social media information mining: Analyze trending topics on X, Telegram, and Discord to capture trends;
• Advanced Risk Management: Such as GigabrainGG, providing institutional-level trading signals.

Currently, it is not yet determined whether existing AI Agents can consistently provide excess Alpha, but some early results have begun to show value.

Multimodal / Multi-channel AI Agent

The traditional ChatGPT-style interaction method is not suitable for all scenarios, and the Web3 AI Agent is exploring new interaction methods to integrate more naturally into users' daily workflows.

• Direct interaction on platform X: The cryptocurrency community is primarily active on platform X, therefore, agents like Clanker and Bankr are directly providing services through platform X, simplifying the user's operation path;
• Discord voice command: AgentTank allows users to directly control AI to perform on-chain tasks through voice on Discord, achieving more efficient collaboration;
• Web3 Browsing and Execution: Since many crypto websites do not provide APIs, Computer Use Agents can simulate human operations to automatically navigate between different websites, scrape data, and execute transactions.

This type of multimodal / multi-channel AI Agent is redefining the user experience of Web3, making AI a true part of the trading and research process.

Virtuals: The Core Platform of the AI Agent Ecosystem

The AI Agent tokenization platform of Virtuals has been operating for 6 months. Although the overall ecological market value has decreased due to market fluctuations, the number of agents has risen from 50 to 716, making it still a leader in the AI Agent field. Currently, the most active application scenarios on Virtuals include:

• GambleFAI: Like Billy Bets, it performs excellently in the AI betting market, even entering the top eight of the ProphetX prediction competition, with an ROI of up to 30%;
• Sports Analysis: Like HeyTracyAI, providing AI-driven analysis and commentary for NBA events;
• Robotics and Embodied AI: SAM is promoting the development of Embodied AI, aiming to build a decentralized AI computing ecosystem similar to Bittensor;
• Alpha discovered: like aixbt and Acolyt, focusing on on-chain data analysis and trading signal provision.

Virtuals is still developing the Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP), aimed at enabling AI agents to collaborate in creating a more efficient economic system. The two earliest application scenarios might be agents for hedge funds and agents for media centers.

Bittensor as AI Infrastructure

Bittensor, with its token Tao, is experiencing a new round of demand rise. Previously, many users only used TAO for staking on the Root Network, but now, more people are willing to invest TAO into the tokens of specific subnets to support concrete AI applications.

• The dTAO model launched in February: The TAO inflation distribution is determined by the market, rather than by the weight of validators. This means that high-value subnets recognized by the market will receive more TAO incentives;
• Actual application rise: Subnets such as SN6, 41, 44 are supporting consumer-level AI Agents like Billy Bets, DKING, etc., expanding the actual application scenarios of Bittensor.

ElizaOS V2 Version and New Launchpad Platform Autofun

ElizaOS has always been one of the most popular AI agent development frameworks, and its V2 version is set to be released soon. Meanwhile, the new Launchpad platform Autofun will go live in two weeks, with 15 projects ready to join the ecosystem.

• ElizaOS Status: Currently has 15.3k GitHub Stars, 5k Forks, and its market influence is continuously rising;
• Funding management issues of AI Agents: Sentient recently released a study revealing security vulnerabilities in funding management for AI Agents such as ElizaOS, highlighting the need for stronger security measures in this field.

Despite the challenges, the ecosystem growth of ElizaOS is still rapid, and its decentralized GPU hosting solution Comput3 AI will also be launched on the Autofun platform.

Summary

AI Agent is still one of the most promising tracks in Web3. It not only brings together innovations in AI and cryptocurrency but may also reshape the productivity and work methods of the entire industry. From AI trading assistants to cross-chain information capture, from yield optimization to automated execution, AI is introducing a new paradigm to Web3.

Everything is like the internet wave of the 1990s, but on a larger scale and with deeper impact. For early participants, now is the best time to enter.