**15 Important Insights About AI Agents Shared by ai16z Founder**
**Written by: Zhou Zhou, Foresight News**
On the afternoon of December 22, 2024, Shaw, the founder of ai16z, and his wife Jill landed in Shanghai. That same evening, I, along with members of the 706 community (one of China’s largest youth communities) and developers and investors from the crypto community, hosted a welcome dinner for him. The following day, I invited Shaw to my home for a discussion before heading to a restaurant, after which I accompanied him to his first meetup event in China. This allowed me to witness Shaw’s itinerary in Shanghai quite comprehensively.
During this process, Shaw generously shared insights about the future focus of ai16z and Eliza, described the future landscape of AI Agents, and provided specific analysis and evaluation of over a dozen well-known AI Agent projects. This deepened my understanding of the AI Agent sector among my peers who attended the gathering.
Looking back, it has only been about a month since Shaw and his founded ai16z gained notoriety in the industry. As the founder of a startup project, he has attracted significant and enthusiastic attention from many investors, developers, and media in the crypto industry. Why is this the case? I believe it may be related to the booming trend of AI Agents in the crypto sector, and ai16z stands out as one of the core projects leading this AI Agent meme narrative.
Although the narrative of crypto AI Agents has only started a month ago, it is already regarded as one of the hottest topics in current crypto industry discussions. Numerous crypto practitioners have identified AI Agents as a major narrative in this crypto cycle. Among them, ai16z is the most well-known project, having established the world’s first VC AI Agent—ai16z DAO, and the first well-known open-source AI Agent crypto framework—Eliza. It has also gained the attention and recognition of Marc Andreessen, a prominent venture capitalist in the U.S. As a result, the market value of ai16z’s token reached $1 billion within a month, and related tokens such as DegenAI, Eliza, and aiPool have also garnered widespread attention from the community.
With this important narrative emerging, crypto practitioners are eager to understand the current state of the AI Agent sector. Is it a bubble or real application? What are the latest developments in the U.S., and what will be the next steps for AI Agents in the crypto industry? To address these questions, I have summarized fifteen significant insights from my exchanges with Shaw over the two days, including his observations and evaluations of ten different AI Agent projects.
1. **Shaw is a serial entrepreneur in AI Agents living in San Francisco, previously a game developer.**
Regarding Shaw’s work and life background, he stated that he resides in San Francisco and initially worked as a game developer. He is now launching products that combine AI Agents with gaming, with this experiment already underway. Shaw’s interest in AI Agents began during the GPT-2 era and deepened with the release of GPT-3. He has worked in the AI field, with every company he has been involved in having strong AI elements, including developing AI Agent platforms and AI Agents in 3D worlds. Shaw has also founded several AI-related companies, but his early projects did not achieve widespread success.
2. **Shaw announced several games based on the Eliza framework are set to launch.**
Shaw revealed that Eliza is collaborating with Treasure DAO to create a game called Smolworld, where players will own a pet monkey and can instruct it on what to do. The monkey may or may not listen to your commands. This game is intriguing because such gameplay would not be possible without AI Agents. The goal is to care for your virtual pet like a parent would.
Additionally, several other games utilizing Eliza are on the way, such as Eternum, which is integrating Eliza so that agents in the game will have wallets, allowing players to “kill” these agents and take their money.
3. **Shaw aims to develop Marc Andreessen into a practical AI Agent investment tool, a DeFi AI Agent.**
Regarding Marc Andreessen, the AI Agent with a name almost identical to the well-known investor, this project is currently in its very early stages (having only posted one tweet). Shaw mentioned that his initial design intent is to create it as a practical investment tool, a DeFi AI Agent.
The purpose of this product is that if humans recommend purchasing a token, it will consider buying it. To prevent malicious actors from recommending inappropriate purchases, it will establish a trust mechanism called the “trust market.” The idea behind the trust mechanism is that if you recommend a good token, it will issue virtual orders for everyone, but not actual purchases. It will ultimately only heed the trading advice of those who provide consistently excellent trading information.
4. **Marc Andreessen has followed several of Shaw’s online accounts, but they have not met in person; Shaw knows some people from a16z.**
There is no doubt that Marc Andreessen is one of the most influential figures in the U.S. venture capital scene. He has shown interest in and retweeted the ai16z project. However, Shaw stated that they have not met in person. “I have been an AI Agent developer for a while, and he has followed several of my accounts, but we have not met privately,” Shaw explained.
According to Shaw, Eddy Lazzarin, the CTO of a16z’s cryptocurrency division, messaged him, stating he has been in the project’s Discord channel since day one but did not say anything. When Shaw asked if he liked this AI Agent, he replied, “No, I’m just watching, just like we are monitoring you.”
5. **Shaw stated that he does not hold Eliza tokens and will never issue independent tokens for the Eliza framework in the future.**
Shaw mentioned that he personally holds two tokens, ai16z and DegenAI, and keeps them in his wallet. However, he does not hold Eliza tokens and will not issue independent tokens for the Eliza framework.
“The ai16z members do not want us to create another token, so I will never do that,” Shaw stated. He also noted that ai16z owns 10% of Eliza tokens. “We support the capitalized Eliza and the team behind Eliza. He said this is an excellent team.”
6. **Openness and ease of use are the core competitive advantages of the Eliza framework.**
Shaw also shared his view on the characteristics of ai16z: open-source, decentralized, and community-driven development model.
He believes that openness and ease of use are the core competitive advantages of the Eliza framework. Shaw emphasized that the focus of the Eliza framework is that anyone can use it, even those from Web2. He wants to ensure that even those who do not pay much attention to Web3 feel satisfied.
Captured at 706 Shanghai Youth Space-Dweller
7. **Shaw believes the future of AI Agents may lie in social media platforms, such as Twitter and Farcaster.**
Shaw believes that the future of AI Agents may lie in social media platforms. He provided an example of an AI Agent developer using Eliza to create a pizza delivery AI Agent, allowing users to order pizza with cryptocurrency.
Shaw thinks it would be interesting to have something like a “pizza delivery AI Agent.” It’s somewhat akin to the Domino’s experience, such as pizza delivery, which essentially happens on social media. Shaw also learned that someone is working on a virtual real estate AI Agent, allowing users to purchase real estate directly on Twitter.
8. **Shaw believes Farcaster will become a hub for AI Agent development, and Eliza is collaborating closely with Farcaster.**
Shaw mentioned that he spoke with Dan, the founder of Farcaster, a few weeks ago, and they engaged in extensive discussions.Shaw finds Farcaster to be very interesting. “Because the first thing he told me is that we don’t want to be Twitter, we cannot beat Twitter in the areas where Twitter excels, and we also don’t want to be a decentralized platform like Bluesky. We are decentralized, but we can never beat Bluesky in the areas where it excels. We are a Web3 social network.
What they do very well is Farcaster Frames, as well as the ability to make payments and use applications like Clanker. I believe this truly reflects the potential strength of AI Agents. We have a Farcaster client, and we have some AI Agents on Farcaster. We will provide rewards for those who bring Eliza to Farcaster. They are really cool. So my feeling is that when AI Agents enter social media applications, they become very interesting, and then you can interact with them. For example, you can buy things, you can trade. I think Farcaster is like a marketplace for AI Agents, where you can access different services, and you can embed payments and all of those things.
So I really think Farcaster is a very interesting thing. I believe it doesn’t necessarily have to become a huge social media platform, but rather a place in Web3 where people can find and access these services.
What we really want to do is integrate Eliza into Farcaster Frames. What Farcaster Frames does is allow us to embed payments or applications, rather than just chatting. For example, if you want to buy something from the Eliza agent, how do you pay? So I think Farcaster is really cool because you’ll be able to pay AI Agents and then be able to embed these applications.
Shaw thinks Clanker is great and hopes that people will develop clone versions of Clanker for Eliza. He stated that he will not issue a token on Clanker.
Shaw believes that people are developing clone versions of Clanker for Eliza. Shaw likes Clanker and thinks it is a brilliant idea. He believes Clanker is like a Pump.fun version of an AI Agent. Shaw thinks AI Agents are becoming the new network, which will become a new trend. Clanker is a great example of this trend.
Shaw shared that when he just joined Farcaster, someone made one for him on Clank. He thought that was cool. But when buying tokens that you create yourself, it only causes a lot of controversy. Shaw said he has to focus on building things related to AI.
Shaw thinks Zerebro and aixbt are cool and is trying to collaborate with Zerebro.
Shaw expressed his interest in what Zerebro and the team behind it are doing. He just submitted his first pull request to Zerepy. Shaw actually wrote the code for the Discord application. Shaw said he is actually collaborating with Zerebro.
Regarding aixbt, Shaw also said that aixbt is really cool. The story behind aixbt is that the creator had a website where he shared some content but did not really gain traction. He brought his insights into his AI Agent, and his AI Agent started posting these insights on Twitter, which indeed created a buzz.
Shaw is a big fan of Truth Terminal and is working with Andy to find solutions where AI will not replace humans in managing the world.
“It is very different,” Shaw said. Shaw believes Andy (the founder of Truth Terminal) cares a lot about AI safety and ensuring that AI Agents operate smoothly. He believes Truth Terminal contributes to this. “Without Andy and Truth Terminal, I don’t think I would be here now; when people weren’t ready, they were already prepared.”
Shaw believes the emergence of Truth Terminal has made many people more open and creative about AI, rather than being mechanical and impersonal like products from OpenAI or Siri that ask, “What service can I provide you today?”
“I discussed with Andy a few days ago about all these AI Agents we can see now. I think he is very concerned about how to ensure the smooth development of AI. I think we all fear AI because it can be a very terrifying thing; it might kill us all, it could take over the world.”
Taken at 706 Shanghai Youth Space-Dweller
Shaw said the creator of the swarms token is a very famous scammer, but he thinks the concept of “AI Agent swarm” is great, and he likes FXN and Project 89.
Shaw said he does not like swarms. He stated that he knows the creator of the swarms token, who is a very well-known scammer, and many AI agents are very angry because he stole their work. Shaw knew him before entering Web3. He became aware of him due to his focus on the AI Agent space, and he got into serious trouble for plagiarizing works and research papers and creating defective things (like non-working code).
Shaw also stated that the concept of a swarm (group) is great, which is a collective of many AI Agents. Shaw thinks Project 89 is interesting because this project is studying “AI Agent swarms.” Shaw also likes FXN, a group of AI Agents consisting of ten AI Agents.
Shaw believes that “AI Agent swarm” can be divided into two types: one is a cabal swarm, and the other is an open swarm.
Shaw believes there are two kinds of swarms. One is a group where AI Agents interact, for example, they secretly send messages to each other. I call this a cabal, which is a joke, but they are all in a cabal or secret group where they can interact, and then they can interact with the outside world.
The second type is an open swarm, where each community may have an agent, and different communities can decide to let them interact. This is also the technology we are researching.
Shaw shared from a developer’s perspective how he finds early excellent AI Agent projects.
Shaw said he is a developer and usually goes to check GitHub and read the code carefully. Most of the time, he looks at what this code is about and what it actually does, but he does not look at whether it has any correlation with market value or price.
Shaw believes some very cool projects have a group of AI Agents, but later they perform very poorly because they did not complete the Web3 part. Shaw believes that good products, good technology, and good tokens are often not one and the same.
Shaw said he cannot understand fartcoin. Currently, fartcoin has a market value of over one billion dollars.
Shaw believes that ai16z’s biggest challenge right now is how to go back and establish a tokenomics model to prove that the project’s value matches the current token market value.
Shaw believes the biggest challenge right now is: AI Agents need to conduct autonomous investments and prove their actual feasibility without external hype for the tokens. Currently, Marc is trading, although not much, just trading his treasury, but many others are contributing tokens, making this part progress smoothly. However, the value of the ai16z token needs to be much higher, so Shaw and their team must start seriously considering how to make the product’s value match the current token market value.
Normal crypto projects, such as L1, have white papers, tokenomics, and charge on-chain fees. But ai16z started as a meme, and they must go back to construct the tokenomics into the ai16z system. This is what Shaw believes is their biggest challenge in Web3. Shaw thinks this is also an issue that many people are particularly concerned about.