The artificial intelligence (AI) market is becoming one of the fastest growing industries in the world. According to market research firm Next Move Strategy Consulting, the current AI market is valued at nearly $100 billion and is expected to grow exponentially.
Given all this, it’s no surprise that chatbots using AI are also on the rise. Recent findings from Precedence Research show that the global chatbot market size was $840 million by 2022.
AI chatbots for Web3 developers in the works
As opportunities around AI and chatbots flourish across industries, the Web3 sector is also starting to benefit from this trend, with blockchain companies creating AI chatbots to help developers build applications faster and more efficiently.
Aanchal Malhotra, head of RippleX Research – an organization within Ripple focused on the development and growth of the XRP Ledger – told Cointelegraph that RippleX is currently working on building an AI chatbot for developers of the XRP Ledger to ask questions:
“Instead of wading through all the documentation and client libraries, developers can direct their questions to the AI chatbot to get instant answers. This will make developers’ lives much easier as it shortens the time it takes for ideas to become applications.”
Skale Labs – the team behind the Skale blockchain network – is also building an AI-powered chatbot. Jack O’Holleran, co-founder and CEO of Skale Labs, told Cointelegraph that the Skale Network has built-in AI and machine learning capabilities that allow developers to run pre-trained AI models within a smart contract.
“AI-powered smart contracts fire without human intervention in a very big way. This allows developers to build quickly and effectively,” he said.
O’Holleran shared that Skale’s AI chatbot will be released publicly soon, stating that one of the main use cases for AI is technical development support.
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“Developers are now building with record efficiency and productivity thanks to the support of AI. One of the key areas of support is direct access to knowledge of technical documentation and coding documentation,” he said.
Following on from this, Matthew Van Niekerk, CEO and co-founder of SettleMint – a blockchain programming tool – told Cointelegraph that AI tools are becoming essential for developers.
Van Niekerk explained that SettleMint recently added an AI Genie engineer assistant to its platform for rapid smart contract development and quality assurance testing and debugging.
“Our AI Genie is built to help organizations get their blockchain applications into production faster so they can leverage the $3.1 trillion opportunity enabled by blockchain,” Van Niekerk explains.
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Van Niekerk further pointed out that SettleMint’s AI Genie is built to support people, not replace them. This is important to highlight, because there are looming concerns that AI-powered assistants could eventually replace human workers.
“The tool itself is positioned as a technical assistant, not an engineer. It is built to abstract mundane processes and complexities that prevent developers and engineers from focusing on building innovative solutions that deliver a clear return on investment for their companies,” explains Van Niekerk.
To put this into perspective, William Baxter, chief technology officer and co-founder of tokenization platform Vertalo, told Cointelegraph that his company is currently using chatbots to summarize and present data to internal and external audiences. Baxter believes that supervised learning is one of the most promising general applications for chatbots:
“Rather than searching for topics and sorting through the results or relying on a curator, a chatbot allows you to create summaries of vast amounts of information. Combined with web access and the use of prompts that encourage the inclusion of links to primary sources, this dramatically increases the scope of online research. When learning a new programming language, blockchain or application, feedback from a chatbot is extremely valuable, even if it is not completely correct.”
Challenges can lead to delayed implementation
While AI-powered chatbots have the potential to help Web3 developers build better, a number of challenges could slow adoption.
For example, while O’Holleran is aware that AI-driven smart contracts can accelerate technical development, he pointed out that these applications often require throughput for on-chain execution with predictable and automated spend.
“This could be problematic in a network with high gas costs and variable fees, as expected expenses can vary dramatically and accidentally become expensive quickly,” he said.
To combat this, O’Holleran explained that the Skale network uses on-chain fees instead of gas fees, making overall fees lower and arguably predictable.
Lydia Mark, director of communications at Magma AI – a project building an AI chatbot that provides users with a virtual learning assistant for Web3 technology – told Cointelegraph that ethical biases can also be problematic with AI chatbots.
“It becomes very easy for AI systems like Magma to inherit the biases attributed during data training, which in turn can negatively impact an entire ecosystem,” she says. To combat this, Mark shared that Magma AI uses bias detection and mitigation techniques.
Still, one of the biggest challenges associated with AI chatbots is data privacy and security. Van Niekerk explained that companies building or using AI assistants must take into account internal company policies and government regulations regarding privacy.
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“Large enterprises may have restrictions on the use of generative AI technologies due to the risk of data privacy breaches. SettleMint’s AI Genie is intentionally built as an optional tool within the platform, so that businesses only sign up when and if necessary,” he says.
Challenges aside, Van Niekerk says that overall, AI chatbots will make Web3 more inclusive and accessible to a wide range of developers.
“Knowledge and expertise are now in place to directly support new developers entering the space. Web2 developers can accelerate their Web3 learning and skills curve by an order of magnitude thanks to AI developer support technology,” he noted.
