When ChatGPT arrived in November 2022, everything changed. With the power of AI tools in the hands of millions around the world, our digital lives were shook up in a heartbeat. In 2025, these AI tools have combined with Web3 technology to create the foundation for a new era of the internet. That foundation is AI agents.
Merging the power of modern AI engines with the latest blockchain tech, AI agents have already made a gigantic impact on social media, gaming, digital identity and much more – and this is just scratching the surface.
Both the current and the potential impact of AI agents is similar in scale to that of AI itself – but why are AI agents such a massive step, what are the biggest AI agent projects, and what would the future hold for AI agents?
Master the topic, as we explain the past, present and future of AI agents.
Key Insights
- AI agents are digital tools that replicate human actions
- Typically powered by a native token, and reward a native token once deployed
- Popularised in October 2024 by Virtuals Protocol
- Saw huge growth in early 2025
- Poised to play a major role in gaming, Web3 and more
What are AI agents?
AI agents are digital tools, powered by AI, that learn from and replicate human actions and behaviours.
There’s a virtually limitless array of applications for AI agents. Some of the most popular so far include:
- Social media accounts
- Video games
- Character impersonations
Social media AI agents interact as though human on social networks, publishing posts, replying to posts from others, and engaging in back and forth discussions on the platform. Prominent social media AI agents include @jaihoz_, @luna_virtuals, and @aixbt_agent. Many of these agents are ran by, or look to replicate the behaviour of, leading names in the community – such as ZachXBT – and are created through platforms such as Virtuals.
Gaming AI agents replicate human video game inputs, similar to a bot. This lets users progress through games, complete quests and earn rewards whilst being away from their devices, allowing players to enjoy the parts of games that they enjoy most whilst avoiding grinds. These AI agents are factored into that game’s ecosystem in a way that benefits both players and developers, fighting against traditional bots. Notable gaming AI agent platforms include GOAT Gaming and KGeN, with Ronin introducing an AI agent SDK later this year.
Character impersonations are a common type of AI agent. These AI agents adopt the mannerisms of a character from a game, project or franchise. Users are often tasked with interacting with these AI agents to achieve a certain results – such as convincing the AI agent to perform a particular action, or send particular information. Several top projects have experimented with these types of AI agents, including the likes of Blocklords.
To deploy an AI agent, users usually pay a fee in the token associated with that AI agent. These AI agents often generate rewards in their native token as well, motivating users to use them, experiment with them, and optimise them for bigger rewards.
How do AI agents work?
An AI agent typically begins with a popular off-the-shelf AI model, such as ChatGPT.
Developers take that AI model and train it to perform a particular task. Training data could include social feeds, player data from a video game, the lines of a particular character in a story, or many others. Once that AI model has been sufficiently trained, it can be released for public use as an AI agent. This typically involves the minting of a token via an AI agent platform, which is then spent by users to hire that particular AI agent.
Some platforms use one-time fees for an AI agent, whilst others are like a rental service – charging a token fee for a duration of time. More services are popping up that host the entire AI agent creation, hiring and deployent flow on a single platform. Some of the most popular AI agent websites at the moment include Virtuals and Holoworld.
The history of AI agents
AI agents hit public consciousness in October 2024 when Virtuals launched their AI agent co-ownership service on Base. Virtuals lets users purchase tokens from existing AI agents, allowing them to speculate and profit on the success of leading AI agents.
Virtuals is regarded as the top AI agent platform, particular for social media AI agents. The site is behind @Toshi_base, @aixbt_agent, @RektguyAI and many more. As of February 22, 2025, $VIRTUAL, the ecosystem token of Virtuals, has a market cap over $800 million USD. AI agent tokens available through the platform exceed a combined market cap of well over $1 billion USD.
January 2025 was when AI agent adoption really took off. In Web3 gaming, Super Champs, KGeN, Illuvium, Nifty Island, Avarik Saga and Ronin all debuted or revealed AI agent products or services that month – with Ronin also revealing that their AI agent SDK would be made available later in 2025. January also saw Avalanche partner with Aethir to launch a $100 million USD ecosystem fund with AI agents at its core. Newer platforms also debuted to challenge Virtuals’ dominance, with one of the most impactful being Holoworld.
In February 2025, GOAT Gaming released their AlphaGOATs AI agents. These are specifically-tailored to be used in their Web3 gaming ecosystem, and is one of the first major releases of AI agent technology for public use.
What’s next for AI agents?
AI agents are one of the biggest innovations of the internet age so far.
Whilst some applications of AI agents so far could be considered gimmicks or trends, others could have massive potential to change the shape of our digital lives as we know it.
Gaming appears to be the leading application to date. Gaming AI agents could turn botting culture on its head, and make one of the biggest issues in competitive online gaming a thing of the past. By integrating AI agents into games, players get equal access to powerful tools, developers can create games with this in mind, and everyone in the ecosystem is fairly rewarded. This could be a win-win scenario that rewards both player time and developer ingenuity – rather than right now, where the lion’s share of benefits go to a few players and the rest lose out.
AI agents have made a huge impact so far – and with the concept still so new, the possibilities are endless. Whichever way AI agents develop in future, we can be certain that they’ll be one of the most exciting aspects of both AI and Web3 across 2025 – and far, far beyond.
COO & founder of NFT Insider. Bullish on web3. Competitive soul.