AI Agents Integrate Deeper Into Solana Ecosystem with Drift, Solana Foundation
Solana’s AI Agents are evolving from social media yappers into versatile DeFi players.
While entertaining, Solana’s first wave of AI Agents were not much more than glorified reply guys unloading automated slop on social media.
Fulfilling Toly’s prophecy of “breakthrough via entertainment”, AI Agents are finding their way into the wider ecosystem through DeFi integrations and developer grants.
What are the implications of deeper ties between Solana DeFi and AI agents and why is the Solana Foundation pouring support into the sector?
Drift Protocol Welcomes AI Agents to DeFi Markets
On January 28, Drift Protocol, a popular Solana perpetual DEX, announced its integration of the Solana Agent Kit. Developed by SendAI, the Solana Agent Kit bestows Agents with greater programmability, allowing them to interact directly with Solana DeFi and onchain data.
AI Agents created by the Solana Agent Kit now have free reign to interact with Drift Protocol, including the applications perpetual markets, lending and borrowing markets, and Drift Vaults.
The integration gives AI Agents greater DeFi autonomy, allowing them to participate in Solana’s onchain markets. Beyond representing a key step forward for AI Agent development in the industry, so-called “Trading Agents” will be able to demonstrate their effectiveness onchain in real-time.
This new development should provide the sector with greater transparency surrounding the capabilities of AI trading algorithms, ultimately helping network participants distinguish genuine projects from elaborate scams.
Solana Foundation Partners with Arc to Power AI Development
Drift Protocol and SendAI aren’t the only teams accelerating AI development on Solana.
In collaboration with the Solana Foundation, arc (AI Rig Complex) announced its intention to provide targeted grants to teams leveraging arc’s tech stack to build composable Agents using the Rust programming language.
Alongside financial support from arc, the Solana Foundation has committed to providing teams with technical mentorship. The Solana Foundation is heavily aligned with the future of onchain AI, having recently announced its support for the Virtuals Protocol AI hackathon in March 2025.
Markets reacted positively to the collaboration, with $arc rising 26.28% despite continued uncertainty following the launch of DeepSeek R1, an efficient, open-source competitor to U.S. Big Tech.
Ai16z Rebrands to ElizaOS
Solana’s open-source AI darling ai16z has formally announced its rebrand to ElizaOS, named after the DAO’s popular Agent framework, Eliza.
Reflecting on the project’s meteoric growth, ElizaOS founder Shaw remarked that the rebrand signified the start of a new chapter for the DAO. Shaw asserts that stepping away from the ai16z branding “opens exciting doors to collaboration with established players”, leaving behind the memetic nature of ai16z.
While the ElizaOS rebrand takes immediate effect, the $ai16z ticker will remain unchanged until the launch of the protocol’s native governance platform. Once live, token holders will be able to vote on a ticker change via governance.
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