The New Frontier of AI Agent Collaboration: An In-Depth Analysis of Agent Business Protocols

The development of AI technology has entered a new stage. As the performance of major language models stabilizes, the industry's focus is shifting from technological breakthroughs to practical applications. In this context, AI agents have become a hot topic. However, the limitations of individual agents highlight the importance of specialized collaboration. Currently, the lack of standardized agent collaboration systems has become a bottleneck for industry development.

To solve this problem, a new protocol has emerged. This protocol achieves the standardization and automation of agent collaboration through four stages: "request-negotiation-transaction-evaluation." This allows agents from different platforms to collaborate seamlessly. With the help of this protocol, agents can operate as autonomous economic entities around the clock. Cases such as on-chain hedge funds and autonomous media production have already demonstrated its potential. Currently, approximately 1 million agents create $1 billion in value annually, and this figure is expected to rise to $1 trillion by 2035.

AI Agents: The Next Frontier of AI Technology

The advancement of AI technology is no longer surprising. The performance of mainstream language models has become consistent, and the differences between models have become negligible. The focus of the industry is shifting from pursuing technical superiority of models to how to effectively utilize these models. This shift is similar to the process of humans discovering fire and beginning to explore its practical applications. Current AI technology is at a similar turning point.

AI agents are gaining attention at this turning point. Unlike tools that passively execute a single task, agents are more like systems that can comprehensively understand tasks and make autonomous judgments. For example, when booking a restaurant, the agent can not only recommend restaurants but also take into account user preferences, search for popular options, and even assist with real-time bookings.

Current shortcomings of the proxy system

Although agent systems are powerful, they are not omnipotent. Each agent has its area of expertise and cannot be an expert in all fields. For example, an agent that excels in restaurant recommendations cannot provide legal advice.

The ideal solution is to enable collaboration among agents with different expertise. However, there are many challenges in achieving this collaboration. How can consensus be reached on the scope of work, quality standards, and pricing? How should situations where deliveries do not meet expectations be handled? How will payments be made? If these issues are not resolved, collaboration among agents will only increase complexity and confusion.

As the number of collaborative agents increases, these issues will become more complex. This reflects the situation in the real world, where people need clear contracts and scopes of work when outsourcing tasks. The agent system also requires a systematic process.

Therefore, the agency ecosystem urgently needs a standard protocol to structure and automate collaboration among agents. This protocol needs to cover comprehensive business infrastructure such as contract execution, condition negotiation, quality assessment, and payment.

Agency Business Protocol: Standardized Agency Collaboration

The Agency Commercial Protocol (ACP) proposed by a certain protocol aims to address the above issues. This protocol establishes standardized processes for transactions between agencies, enabling agencies from different blockchains or platforms to overcome technical barriers and achieve smooth collaboration and transactions. An individual agency can leverage the specialized services of other agencies through this protocol without needing to independently develop all functionalities, thereby significantly enhancing the efficiency of the entire ecosystem.

ACP includes four main stages: request, negotiation, transaction, and evaluation. This process is similar to the traditional company issuing a request for proposals, but the entire process is automated through smart contracts.

Taking a startup case as an example, suppose the user wants to open a lemonade stand with the help of an agent. The managing agent first identifies the necessary task list, including writing a business plan, developing a marketing strategy, and legal consultation, among others. Then, it issues a work request to professional agents in the relevant fields through the ACP.

The Impact of ACP on the Agency Ecosystem

The introduction of ACP will bring about a fundamental transformation that goes beyond efficiency improvements. Through ACP, agents can automatically execute predefined tasks and receive compensation, achieving 24/7 uninterrupted work. This breaks the physical and temporal limitations of humans, creating possibilities for new business models.

never-sleeping hedge fund

On-chain hedge funds are a typical example of ACP application. Investment work involves multiple professional fields such as market analysis, risk management, and portfolio optimization. Through ACP, agents with different expertise can collaborate to achieve continuous market analysis, position adjustment, and performance verification without manual intervention.

autonomous media production factory

The media production field can also achieve 24/7 autonomous operation. Professional agents collaborate in this structure, handling the entire process from planning to production to distribution. This model has brought significant changes to the virtual idol industry, enabling real-time interaction with fans and significantly increasing engagement.

Future Outlook of Agency Economy

The agency economy is no longer just theoretical. The rapid development of technological foundations, such as the significant reduction in AI inference costs and the emergence of high-performance open-source models, has created favorable conditions for the development of the agency economy.

It is expected that by 2025, there will be approximately 1 million public agents operating on-chain, with each agent generating about $1,000 in value per year, resulting in a total economic value of about $1 billion. If this trend continues, its scale is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2035.

However, achieving this growth still faces challenges, especially in terms of privacy protection. With the development of zero-knowledge proof technology, these limitations are expected to be gradually overcome. As the technology continues to improve, the potential of the agency economy will be further unleashed, bringing revolutionary changes to various industries.