How much can Web3 capture in the multi-trillion-dollar AI agent market?

By David Nage, Venture Capital PM ARCA

Compiled by: Shaofaye123, Foresight News

Nvidia's CEO said: "The era of AI Agentics has arrived," adding that this emerging field contains a "trillion-dollar business opportunity."

Even before Jen-Hsun Huang made the above remarks, user interest in the fourth quarter of 2024 had turned to Web3 AI agents, which were gradually developed using the infrastructure and provided frameworks of Web3 and AI.

On January 2, the market value of various Web3 AI agents achieved significant breakthroughs: Ai16zDAO reached a market value of US$2.6 billion through Eliza's framework, and Virtuals reached a market value of US$5 billion through GAME. Four days later, the market value of ARC through RIG and Zerebro through Zerepy and other frameworks reached US$450 million and US$783 million respectively. On January 12, among the 1,210 agents in the Cookie framework, the total market value of Solana agents reached US$7.5 billion, and that of Base reached US$5.5 billion; the total market value has exceeded US$13 billion.

Considering the multi-trillion dollar opportunity and the growth in the field to date, where exactly will the market cap of Web3 AI agents be in the future? At the same time, the market share of traditional AI companies (such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, etc.) also needs to be taken into consideration to analyze the possible share and development time of Web3 AI agents.

Artificial Intelligence Technology Adoption Analysis

Since the birth of email, it took 35 years for 1 billion people to have an email address. Since ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, the current number of monthly active users (MAU) has been close to 200 million. You can refer to the following technology adoption curve:

There are currently about 4.8 billion unique email addresses in the world, and the number of ChatGPT users accounts for about 4.2%, even though language restrictions, computing resources and other factors slowed down its growth in the early days.

Calculated based on the current rate of approximately 14 million new users per month, if growth doubles (thanks to wider access rights, competitive drivers and other factors), reaching 28.6 million new users per month, then in the next 24 The total number of new users within the month will reach:

28.6 million × 24 months≈ 686M

Together with the 200 million existing users, the total number of ChatGPT users is expected to be close to 886 million by 2026.

Assuming that by 2026:

Paying users: 886 M × 0.10 (conversion rate) = 88.6 million paying users

Monthly revenue: 88.6 million × 20 = $1.77 billion/month

Annual revenue: 1.77 billion × 12 = 21.24 billion US dollars/year

If a price-to-sales ratio (P/S Ratio) of 5 times is used to calculate the market value, and the premium multiple is used as a reference, this will bring the market value of ChatGPT to approximately US$100 billion (the latest round of private equity market valuation is US$157 billion). Huang Renxun said that AI agents may be a trillion-dollar business opportunity. Assuming ChatGPT occupies 15% of the total market size, this still leaves an $850 billion market space waiting to be captured.

So the question is: How much market share can Web3 AI agents capture in this?

Web3 market share analysis

We can apply the "bitcoin to gold ratio" to the AI ​​agent market. Currently, the market value of Bitcoin accounts for approximately 10.9% of the total market value of the gold market. If Web3 AI agents could capture market share similar to Bitcoin/Golden Ratio:

$850 billion × 10.9% = $92.65 billion (the potential size of the Web3 AI agent market).

However, there are some factors that may indicate that Web3 AI agents may have a higher market share:

Advantages of Web3 proxy:

• Decentralized infrastructure: The infrastructure for decentralized networks already exists and can be leveraged directly.
• Token incentive mechanism: Promote user and developer participation through a tokenized reward mechanism.
• Smart contract automation: Efficient automated operations are achieved through smart contracts.
• Built-in payment function: The payment function in the Web3 ecosystem has been seamlessly integrated and can be used directly.
• Data sovereignty and ownership: Users can truly own and control their own data.

Unique capabilities of Web3 proxy:

• Tokenized ownership of agents: Allows users to hold ownership of agents through tokens.
• DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) integration: Seamlessly integrate with DAO to achieve community-driven management and decision-making.
• Composability with DeFi: Web3 proxies can seamlessly integrate with decentralized financial applications to expand their functionality and value.

Given these unique advantages of the Web3 AI agent, its market share may be higher than the ratio of Bitcoin to gold. If we assume the following three scenarios:

• Low expectations: 10.9% (Bitcoin/gold ratio) = $92.65 billion
• Mid-range estimate: 20% = $170 billion
• High expectations: 30% = $255 billion

The potential of the Web3 proxy market may be much greater than this, especially if these advantages are further explored and fully exploited.

Conclusion

The rise of web3 AI agents represents the intersection of two transformative technologies.

ChatGPT has reached 200 million monthly active users in just two years. This rapid growth curve provides an important reference benchmark for the accelerated popularization of AI technology. Taking the 10.9% "Bitcoin to Gold Market Capitalization Ratio" as a conservative baseline and applying it to the estimated $850 billion AI agent market opportunity (excluding ChatGPT's share), the market size of Web3 AI agents may reach $92.65 billion. . Given web3's inherent advantages, such as decentralized infrastructure, token-based incentives, smart contract automation, and built-in payment systems, its market share is likely to be even higher. A market share of 20% is a reasonable expectation, which will support a market size of US$170 billion.

In addition, Web3 proxies’ unique capabilities in tokenizing proxy ownership, DAO integration, and composability with DeFi enable it to take advantage of the rapid adoption trajectory of AI technology and the existing infrastructure of blockchain technology. Therefore, this area has the potential to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the intersection of AI and blockchain technologies.