In the near future AI Agents will transact & coordinate at scales & speeds beyond direct human oversight.
Virtual Agent Economies
There is a potentially global economy in which autonomous AI Agents interact with one another to generate economic value independently of human labour or involvement.
Google DeepMind just dropped a paper on Virtual Agent Economies
In this study Google DeepMind is theorising on the environment virtual agents will live in…the coin four key concepts…
Permeable and Impermeable…
Permeable is where AI Agents are integrated into the human environment and established human economy.
Impermeable is where AI Agents live in their own construct and economical virtual environment.
I feel that the second option is highly unlikely…AI Agents will be permeable and live in the environments we as humans live in.
This is already evident in AI Agents that can browse the internet and navigate computer operating systems.
There is huge economies of scale to leverage if AI Agents can live in the digital world of humans. The infrastructure already exists.
I can imagine an agentic layer which sits between the user and digital environments, creating an orchestrated experience for the user.
In the context of virtual Agent Economies for AI agents, “permeable” refers to economic boundaries that allow porous interaction and transaction with the established human economy by external actors.
While “nonpermeable” (or impermeable) refers to boundaries that hermetically seal the Agent Economies from such interactions.
Emergent origins refer to those that arise spontaneously as a byproduct of widespread AI Agent adoption and interactions without deliberate planning.
Whereas intentional origins involve purposefully designed economies created for specific goals like safe experimentation or risk mitigation.
My sense here is that there is the perfect world for AI Agents to live in, and then there is the practical evolution of AI Agents as we see it currently, quite generic.
Early standards like Agent2Agent and Model Context Protocol are connecting AI Agents together, creating the foundation for a global, always on, machine to machine economy.
The concepts from the paper apply to AI Agents operating in real-world environments like web-browsing and computer-using agents, as these typically function within permeable frameworks that allow direct integration and interaction with the human economy, and their resulting economic dynamics are more likely to have emergent origins, arising spontaneously from widespread adoption and unplanned interactions rather than intentional, isolated design.
One can argue that the paper describes the possibility of impermeable AI Agents economies where only AI Agents operate, isolated from human interactions.
This setup enables safe experimentation and mitigates risks like economic spillovers or inequalities.
However, the paper acknowledges challenges in achieving true impermeability and the need for minimal interfaces for value exchange.
Chief Evangelist @ Kore.ai | I’m passionate about exploring the intersection of AI and language. Language Models, AI Agents, Agentic Apps, Dev Frameworks & Data-Driven Tools shaping tomorrow.
