Cathie Wood highlights AI agent economy and deflationary potential

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood has proposed a new investment strategy termed ‘follow the agents,’ focusing on the financial infrastructure required as AI agents transition from answering queries to autonomous spending. BlackRock has noted that AI agents may create a demand for machine-specific payment systems, suggesting that stablecoins and blockchain technology could facilitate 24/7, high-frequency, micro-payments for services like API calls and computing power.

While major tech firms like Google and OpenAI are developing proprietary payment features, the rise of AI agents presents a competition between open networks and closed ecosystems. Coinbase reported that the Grok model is already an active agentic trader on its platform.

Separately, Wood has engaged in a debate with Bill Ackman regarding the inflationary impact of AI. While Ackman warned that inelastic demand for AI resources could fuel inflation despite interest rate hikes, Wood argues that rapidly falling AI inference costs—dropping nearly 100% annually at constant performance levels—will lead to ‘benign deflation.’ She contends that cheaper production costs will drive usage rather than inflationary pressure.