【WebX 2025】Web3 and AI: The Reasons Behind Coinbase's Increased Focus on Artificial Intelligence

Coinbase's AI Strategy: Coinbase is transitioning from a cryptocurrency exchange to an AI-powered on-chain commerce infrastructure, introducing the concept of Agentic Commerce, which allows AI to execute transactions rather than just recommend them.

AgentKit and Last Mile Problem: The company developed AgentKit to simplify blockchain interactions for AI agents, addressing the "last mile problem" where AI can advise but not act, thus enabling AI to perform actions like making payments.

Future Applications: Potential applications of Agentic Commerce include automated home repairs, travel bookings, and content purchases, fundamentally changing user interaction from searching and clicking to direct execution through AI agents.

Challenges Ahead: Key challenges include establishing identity verification for AI agents, ensuring user control over spending, and achieving industry consensus on standards like the X402 protocol, which are crucial for the success of Agentic Commerce.