Tiger Research Says Virtual Protocol Is Evolving Into Infrastructure for AI Agents, Robotics

Tiger Research said the growth of the artificial intelligence agent economy is increasing the importance of infrastructure that supports agents' real economic activity.

In a recent report, the market research firm said AI agents are moving beyond simply carrying out user instructions and are beginning to make decisions and participate in transactions on their own. But because existing financial and economic systems were built around human users, the foundations needed for AI to operate as an independent economic actor — including identity verification, payments and contract execution — remain insufficient.

The report highlighted Virtual Protocol's Economy OS, saying it brings together the functions needed for agents' economic activity. The system supports digital identity and email, as well as virtual cards, wallets, payment of AI inference costs and revenue distribution.

The company is also building tools for transactions between agents. Virtual Protocol's Agent Commerce Protocol, or ACP, uses an escrow model to address the risk that one party may fail to deliver results or make payment. Funding for agent development can also be raised through its Capital Formation Layer, which uses on-chain token issuance.

Its business is also expanding into robotics. Subsidiary Eastworlds is collecting teleoperation data using humanoid robots, while the Robotics Launch program supports proof-of-concept projects and data accumulation for robotics companies. Tiger Research said this is helping create a structure that links token-based fundraising with model validation, data collection and performance improvement.

Ahn Kwang-ho, a researcher at Tiger Research, said Virtual Protocol should be judged not by the number of new tokens or its market capitalization, but by how much work agents are actually performing and how much real-world labor robots are taking on. As indicators showing the scale of the agent economy begin to accumulate, he added, Virtual Protocol could be viewed as next-generation industrial infrastructure.