There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear. With apologies to Buffalo Springfield (and later Public Enemy), those lines neatly sum up the latest crypto trend: companies building tools to power stablecoin-wielding AI agents. It’s a lot to get your head around, but the basic idea is this: In the future, we will all be deploying AI agents that don’t just communicate, but engage in online commerce on our behalf—buying our concert tickets, say, or locking up a hotel reservation.
I first encountered this idea last year when Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told me that soon our AI agents will be carrying little purses filled with crypto—an odd but vivid image that has stuck with me. Since then, companies have been galloping to make this happen.
