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Corporate AI Agents Will Dominate in 2025, Leaving Blockchain Startups Behind

Published
Gracy Chen
Published
By Gracy Chen
Edited by Samantha Dunn
Key Takeaways
  • In 2025, large corporations will dominate the AI agent market, leveraging proprietary models, datasets, and resources.
  • Blockchain startups face funding, user acquisition, and development hurdles unless they innovate or partner within larger ecosystems.
  • Investors should prioritize tokens offering practical solutions over hype-driven projects, focusing on financial and technical viability.

In 2025, blockchain startups focused on developing AI agents may face significant competition from global corporations.

Giants like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Tencent already have a big advantage, including proprietary language models, extensive datasets, powerful computing resources, and almost unlimited scalability.

As a result, small projects risk being left without funding, users, and development opportunities, which makes this path potentially unfeasible.

Despite the idea’s attractiveness, entering the AI agent market may be challenging for most blockchain projects, especially if they are not part of a large developer ecosystem or do not have unique technologies that can compete effectively.

Key Risks for Investors

Recent trends show that hype-driven projects in the AI and blockchain sectors often struggle to maintain long-term value.

Many of these startups’ tokens are already depreciating, as evidenced by the AI token market returning to November levels, with many assets losing half their value over the past month.

AI Market token performance.
AI Token Market Daily Performance. Source: CoinGecko.
AI sector performance chart.
Major AI Sectors Weekly Performance. Source: CoinGecko

This trend may worsen in 2025 with the growing dominance of a few major players, meaning investors should carefully evaluate projects, paying attention to their technical and financial viability and the real prospects of their products.

Global Expansion of AI Agents: What Awaits us?

Nevertheless, 2025 is expected to be the year of global AI expansion through agents developed by large corporations and established leaders. Here are some anticipated developments:

  • Microsoft will integrate AI agents  into the Office and Teams ecosystem, offering smart assistants for task management, document processing, and data analytics.
  • Google will integrate agents into the search engine  and the Android ecosystem, turning them into personal user consultants.
  • Amazon will enhance its virtual assistants, such as Alexa, making them more adaptive and capable of automating complex tasks such as smart home and logistics management.
  • Tencent  and other Asian companies will use AI agents to manage social platforms, e-commerce, and financial services.

While these developments highlight the potential of AI agents, they also underscore the barriers faced by smaller players in carving out a space in this rapidly growing market.

Numbers and Predictions

By early 2025, the AI agent token market reached a market cap of $8.7 billion  and a daily trading volume of $2.4 billion.

While this market is expected to grow to $50-60 billion in 2025, it’s unlikely to reach the size of the memecoin market, which is expected to experience another growth cycle this year.

The increasing adoption of AI agents in crypto transactions, including wallet management and transaction automation, will be a significant driver of this growth.

Crypto exchanges will begin actively implementing AI agents to automate operations and provide more personalized services.

However, the technology is still in its early stages and requires significant human oversight, limiting its scalability for large-scale investments.

As a result, investors are likely to demonstrate caution, focusing on tokens that offer practical solutions rather than those fueled by speculative hype.

Investors will tend to opt for tokens backed by practical solutions rather than over-hyped products. Meanwhile, users will prefer agent tokens that generate cash flows, such as those replacing a developer or automating tasks.

In 2025, the number of transactions between AI agents and users is expected to rise significantly, with new use cases emerging.

These may include independent information sharing and transaction exchanges between AI systems, highlighting the growing potential of this innovative technology.

The Future of the Market: AI Agent Monopoly

In the future, users will likely need to choose between several popular AI agents, much like they currently choose operating systems for smartphones and PCs.

Competition among large players will lead to the standardization of features, though it could also limit innovation, particularly from independent developers and smaller startups.

For blockchain startups, the path forward lies in integrating existing solutions from industry leaders or finding new market niches, rather than attempting to compete with established giants.

As AI agents become a crucial part of the technological ecosystem, their evolution will be shaped mainly by large corporations rather than small companies.

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to CCN, its management, employees, or affiliates. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.

Gracy Chen

Gracy Chen is the CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitget. Prior to this role, she held executive positions at XRSPACE, a VR technology company, and was an early investor in BitKeep, Asia’s leading decentralized wallet. She is a strong advocate for better diversity in the Web3 space and a member of the UN Women conference. In 2015, she was named a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum.
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