Disrupting Centralized Structures of the Digital Economy Using AI and Blockchain

Fetch.ai is a Business Reporter client.

Access to AI and blockchain technologies has been democratized, but humans still lack full control of their digital interactions. This is beginning to change.

Technologies such as AI and blockchain are now becoming more commonplace across multiple industries: health care, finance, agriculture, construction and more. As a result, increasing numbers of people worldwide—even in economies still in the early stages of technological empowerment—are, knowingly or not, starting to come into contact with them on a near-daily basis.

However, until recently, these technologies were the domain of large companies in the tech, pharmaceutical and trading worlds, which meant that, for the ordinary person, access to them was either minimal or indirect. The quickening democratization of AI and blockchain over the past five years has somewhat reduced the exclusivity that once characterized their usage.

But the process of democratization hasn’t been wholesale. Despite all the decentralizing trends, the digital economy remains largely centralized, and while consumer access to the fruits of new technologies might have improved, many barriers still prevent people from fully controlling the outcome of any transaction.

To take one example, the process of booking a holiday today is a vast improvement from 20 years ago. Back then, a trip to a travel agent was usually required, and the holidaymaker would be presented with options chosen by the agent for reasons—namely, commissions—that might benefit the agent more than the customer. Now, holidaymakers can browse a range of flight and hotel aggregator websites, type in some details and before long, a trip will be booked.

But the level of control is still questionable, for there are the in-built preferences of the aggregator to contend with. There is also the rigmarole of having to go through endless search results, payment forms and other inconveniences. In short, the process might be easier and it might feel more empowering—but it is replete with tasks that take up lots of time, and inbuilt technologies that manipulate users’ own preferences and diminish their power to make truly autonomous decisions.

Another example is public parking: A driver will spend time trawling car parks looking for an empty space, then has to pay at a machine to secure the spot they’ve found. This is time-consuming and stressful—and, as one company is now showing us, ultimately unnecessary.

Fetch.ai, an AI lab founded in Cambridge, U.K. four years ago, is rolling out what it calls Autonomous Economic Agents, or “digital twins,” that take the place of these middlemen and aggregators. By using secure blockchain datasets, these agents effectively operate on behalf of their owners, learning which preferences they seek in any given decision or transaction and making those decisions on their behalf. For example, if a parking space close to a supermarket is required, the driver’s software agent—which can integrate with a range of digital platforms—will seek out that space, direct the driver to it and make the payment, all with minimal human input. The same goes for a holiday booking; it will know what the user wants and, through interaction with software agents in use by the service provider, can undertake searching and booking for the user.

Fetch.ai’s technology is applicable across multiple verticals, from financial trading platforms and ride-hailing apps to smart energy grids and more. In each case, it can improve efficiency and optimize outcomes by providing access to better data for both consumers and suppliers. It also allows for true peer-to-peer economic interactions. The removal of third parties and their replacement with a digital twin that acts only in the interests of those involved means that peer engagement is direct, unmediated and not subject to manipulation, and that the economic benefit goes only to consumer and supplier.

Supply chains are another concern of Fetch.ai. Problems with transparency and reliability of data—largely due to the size, complexity and opacity of many supply chains—slow the pace and accuracy of decision-making by those involved in supply chains. Insert a software agent, however, and the job becomes much easier.

For example, Fetch.ai partners with an on-location food and beverage services company that depends on an efficient and speedy supply chain that connects it to local suppliers of sustainable products. Discovering these suppliers and procuring from them is time-consuming. By digitalizing and automating their supply chain, Fetch.ai is enabling its digital agents to do much of the heavy lifting on behalf of the company: seeking out the suppliers, tracing the sustainability of products and placing orders.

Through such innovations, advanced technologies are becoming accessible to the everyday consumer. AI and blockchain were once the domain of large corporations, but with the advent of services being developed by Fetch.ai, this is no more. These technologies are no longer so exclusive, and they are providing clear, measurable benefits to humans—from the time they are required to spend on any task to the costs involved in doing so, to the degree of control it hands back to them. With its innovative and empowering AI-enabled blockchain solutions, Fetch.ai is putting both companies and individuals at the center of the decentralized digital economy.

Build tomorrow’s solution – today. Using Fetch.ai. Visit fetch.ai.

This article originally appeared on Business Reporter. Image credit: Courtesy of Fetch.ai