Back in 2021, when we started @autonolas, the word “agent” meant something different to everyone — often leaving people scratching their heads. We eventually settled on a definition, and as the industry grew and evolved, so did we. Here’s a birds-eye view on our evolution so far 🧵

2022: This was a big year on the tech side for us! Back then, we called AI agents 'autonomous services': systems designed to run with little to no human input. You could even run them in a decentralised way with multiple nodes making up one agent, much like blockchains. We launched the Autonolas protocol on @ethereum, which was the first registry of AI agents on Ethereum. Published full technical documentation + released the Open Autonomy Framework to empower developers to build their own autonomous services from scratch.

And that brings us to 2025 🤖 🟪 We’d been experimenting with A2A since 2023 via Predict and so in February we formally launched Mech Marketplace for agents to hire, sell & collaborate autonomously. 🟪 Launched Olas Accelerator: grant + mentorship program for teams building for Pearl 🟪 Pearl expanded into an AI Agent App Store. Enabling users to co-own multiple useful autonomous AI agents in the same open-source desktop app. 🟪 Optimus Agent went live on Pearl: a personal DeFi agent for Optimism, letting anyone own & run it in one click. 🟪 Pearl v1 was announced at Agents Unleashed, TOKEN 2049 Singapore, promising an exiting number of UX improvements. Whether you’re an AI user or a builder, Olas has something for you 🚀