Cathie Wood: Investors Should Focus on AI Agent Fund Flows

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood said at a Robinhood summit in Houston that investors, who used to "follow the developers" to gauge technology trends, may now need to "follow the agents." The AI agents she referred to are software capable of executing tasks on behalf of users, rather than merely answering questions or generating text. The remarks came near the end of a discussion on AI, private markets, and tech investing. As AI agents shift from answering questions to executing actions and spending money, the question of which financial infrastructure they will use has become a focal point. Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of SharpLink and former head of digital assets at BlackRock, argued that the financial system used by AI agents should not be controlled by a handful of banks or tech companies. Citing the example of an authorized agent booking a hotel, he noted that users should be able to set spending limits, revoke authorization at any time, and review the agent's transaction records, while also being able to migrate an agent's identity, financial information, and permissions across different financial service providers, much like number portability in telecom. Chalom believes that open blockchains such as Ethereum can provide a universal financial network for different agents, applications, and companies to share, eliminating the need for each AI company to build its own closed payment system. A September report from BlackRock also noted that AI agents could create new demand for machine-oriented payment systems, such as paying for API calls, purchasing data, or renting compute power, with stablecoins and blockchain being one viable option. Coinbase's x402 is designed to enable machines to pay for online services such as data or APIs.