There’s an opportunity coming at the intersection of AI, crypto, and programmable social networks like Farcaster and Lens. While many crypto circles are talking about AI with social handles—agents that can tweet, interact, and even manage crypto wallets—the broader business world has been more focused on how AI can reduce costs and turbocharge revenue (the classic B2B play).
But there’s a place where the two meet, where AI both creates novelty and amplifies business-model logic and ROI. Programmable social networks allow onchain communities with shared goals and value flows to be supercharged by AI tools.
Despite the buzzword, “community” is as old as humanity itself. And they’ve been the cornerstone of the internet since Web 1.0—from early forums and chat rooms all the way to Reddit and Discord.
What crypto brought to online communities is the free flow of monetary value. Suddenly, groups online could share, trade, invest, and build entire economies without friction. That concept blossomed into DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). While most DAOs didn’t fully live up to the hype, the promise of digitally native, value-creating communities remains.
And now AI is about to give these communities superpowers:
Automation of processes: from governance to content moderation to treasury management.
Insights and intelligence: using AI to parse community sentiment and data for better decision-making.
Scalability: enabling communities to coordinate and grow in ways that aren’t possible with purely human bandwidth.
Emerging “programmable social” protocols such as Farcaster and Lens allow anyone to custom-build clients connected to them. While most have been twitter clones (or myspace…), the potential remains for creating more robust community experiences—like Discord servers or Reddit-like forums—on this open, composable infrastructure. Instead of a walled garden, communities have the potential to:
Interact with each other
Communities aren’t isolated. They can cross-pollinate ideas, data, and value with other groups on the network.
Tap into shared tools
AI agents, apps, and new services built on top of the network can be easily integrated, giving each community a suite of ready-to-go capabilities.
Own their distribution channel
Because these communities are built on open protocols, they can’t be “rugged” or cut off. They own their social graph, ensuring longevity and higher willingness to invest and innovate.
For the average user, this ownership might not be critical. But for communities aiming to be company-like, with meaningful budgets, treasuries, and products, it’s a big deal. They need guarantees of stability and control to justify deep investment of time and capital.
Traditionally, B2B AI companies thrive by selling solutions to businesses that want to cut costs or increase revenues. Onchain communities, with their treasuries, governance structures, and potential for economic activity, represent an emerging B2B-like market:
Profit Motivation: Many onchain communities are trying to build sustainable economic models. They’re not just hobby clubs; they want to earn revenue, manage projects, and distribute rewards. An AI solution that helps them do that is valuable.
Data Access & Ownership: Relying on centralized APIs (like Twitter or Discord) can be risky—policies can change, or API access can be revoked. But in an open protocol ecosystem, data and interactions are public or permissioned under clear conditions. AI providers can tap into this data seamlessly and reliably, building robust services without fear of sudden disconnection.
In the onchain community space, you have a steady pipeline of groups that want sophisticated tools for governance, knowledge management, tokenization, and more.
I’ve proposed several AI-powered starter-ideas (not yet fleshed out at all, and most need a good starting MVP before tackling the bigger vision) for people to expand upon and submit to the Luminous Agentic Contest. Each tool addresses a different aspect of a community’s lifecycle—governance, monetization, collaboration, and innovation. Here’s a quick rundown:
What it does: Crafts and manages a community’s mission, from goal-setting to fund distribution, directly in the social feed.
Why it matters: It streamlines decision-making by analyzing proposals, summarizing discussion points, and executing onchain governance actions quickly and transparently.
What it does: Creates tokenized knowledge graphs that empower communities to collaboratively build and monetize knowledge ecosystems.
Why it matters: Think of it like an open, onchain Wikipedia with token incentives. Communities can curate valuable information and get rewarded for contributions.
What it does: Designs and launches custom tokens with built-in utility and governance features for your community.
Why it matters: Tokenization is still complicated. An AI that can model token flows, governance implications, and potential market demand lowers the barrier to launching intelligent tokens that help communities thrive.
What it does: Crowdsources feedback on creative works (blog posts, art, proposals), and distributes tokenized rewards fairly to participants.
Why it matters: It incentivizes community feedback and collaboration, turning critique and ideation into a structured, rewarding experience.
The Hatchery
What it does: Serves as an incubator agent that helps creators and entrepreneurs launch projects within your community.
Why it matters: Many communities aspire to spin off new ventures. The Hatchery provides structured, AI-driven guidance on everything from concept validation to fundraising, all within a community’s social feed.
Each of these tools leverages the open, composable nature of programmable social protocols. They’re not siloed apps; they can interoperate with each other and with the broader onchain ecosystem.
We’re still in the early days of merging AI with decentralized communities. But consider the potential:
Network effects: Social networks like Farcaster and Lens can replicate the virality and user growth of Twitter or Reddit. AI solutions that plug into these networks also enjoy that growth.
Composability: Because the underlying data and protocols are open, AI services can build on each other’s innovations, much like DeFi protocols composably lock, lend, and trade assets.
Alignment of incentives: Onchain communities have treasuries, tokens, and governance structures that reward value creation. If your AI solution helps the community create real value, it’s easier to measure, track, and reward that contribution.
Fun, lighthearted communities can use tools like these, but so might digitally native collectives that operate with a strong emphasis on business-model logic. They can hold real funds, manage real operations, and need real solutions. With the combination of programmable social and AI, we have a recipe for a new wave of innovation—merging the network effects of social media, the economic power of crypto, and the intelligence of AI.
Online communities are evolving into robust ecosystems for innovation and entrepreneurship. The superpowers are coming; it’s time to build and then harness them.
