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Franklin Templeton links agentic AI micropayments to public blockchains
The fund manager argues that as AI agents transact autonomously, traditional payment networks may be too costly for fractions-of-a-cent machine-to-machine payments.
Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul says investors looking for the next AI-driven opportunity should consider blockchain networks and crypto assets, as autonomous AI agents begin transacting with one another, according to CoinDesk.
Kaul argues agentic AI will need low cost, programmable payment rails to support machine-to-machine micropayments, making blockchains more suitable than traditional financial networks when transaction fees would otherwise outweigh the value transferred.
In the view echoed by Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, AI agents and blockchain are converging into a single economic system in which software can coordinate and exchange value autonomously.
Kaul contrasts agentic AI with generative AI and says many AI agent transactions could be worth only fractions of a cent, such as paying for an API call, computing time, or data access, which she argues public blockchain networks can handle better than conventional payment rails.