The technological and economic foundation for an AI agent-based economy to grow to a scale of $1 trillion is rapidly being established. Tiger Research recently highlighted through a report the potential of the Virtuals Protocol and ACP (Agent Commerce Protocol), a new open commerce protocol that standardizes collaboration between agents alongside the performance equalization of AI models. The report predicted that ACP will become the core infrastructure of the agent ecosystem through interoperability and transaction automation, and will be the central axis of a revenue-based agent economy in the future.
According to Tiger Research, as the performance gap between large AI models like GPT and Gemini has virtually disappeared, the artificial intelligence technology field is now focusing on the efficiency of 'model utilization' and actual service implementation rather than 'model development'. While previous AI was limited to simple responses, modern AI agents have evolved into *active systems* capable of autonomously processing various tasks by understanding and judging user requests. This means AI technology is becoming the basis for functioning as an independent economic entity beyond a mere auxiliary tool.
However, a single agent has limitations in covering all specialized fields. Consequently, the need for an environment where multiple agents collaborate based on their respective expertise has emerged. The problem is the lack of a *standardized protocol* for collaboration between these agents. For example, when a marketing agent requests a poster from a design agent, there was no process to automatically handle collaboration, transaction conditions, result evaluation, and compensation settlement.
The concepts of Virtuals Protocol and Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP) have emerged to solve these issues. The Tiger Research report explained that ACP provides a foundation for realizing a trust-based autonomous economy by structuring commerce between agents in four stages: Request, Negotiation, Transaction, and Evaluation. Collaboration occurring on the same protocol maximizes agents' *interoperability* and expands the scope of economic activities.
In particular, Virtuals has focused on expanding web3-based commerce infrastructure and has released over 17,000 agents, including the Game Framework (G.A.M.E). However, as the initial platform concentrated on individual agent development and deployment, it was evaluated as lacking interconnectivity between agents. ACP was developed to solve this ecosystem fragmentation problem and is expected to function as the *digital stripe of agent commerce* by removing technological barriers between various blockchains and platforms.
The ACP-based agent ecosystem is innovative through actual cases. For instance, on-chain hedge funds can autonomously operate comprehensive investment portfolios 24/7 by having agents responsible for market analysis, risk management, trading strategies, and smart contract audits collaborate through ACP. Various specialized agents like BevorAI, AIXVC, and Loky constitute this system, and Tiger Research introduced it as a next-generation financial model.
The media industry is also transitioning to automation. Virtual influencer Luna collaborates with agents like Alphakek, MUSIC, and Luvi to automate the entire process of planning, producing, and distributing short videos through ACP. Such 24-hour autonomous systems can have advantages in cost efficiency and real-time fan communication compared to traditional manual operation methods.
The agent economy market size is estimated at about $1 billion as of 2025, with the number of public on-chain agents exceeding 1 million. Given that each agent contributes approximately $1,000 annually to the economy, analysis suggests that if the current growth trajectory is maintained, it could grow to a total of $1 trillion by 2035. However, challenges remain in privacy protection. Tiger Research anticipates that introducing zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology can resolve sensitive transaction information protection issues.
Tiger Research evaluated in this report that ACP and Virtuals Protocol represent the starting point of elevating AI agents from mere software to *economic system subjects*, emphasizing that this can be the driving force leading a new blockchain-based digital economic paradigm.
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