Coinbase Tests AI Agents Modeled on Former Executives Fred and Balaji

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company has started testing AI agents on Slack and email to assist employees with work tasks, continuing the company's efforts to embed AI into its workflows. In a post to X on Saturday, Armstrong said the company has already deployed two AI agents, modeled after two former executives, speculating that AI agents could eventually outnumber human employees at the crypto exchange. "Soon, it will be easy for any employee to spin up a new agent for themselves or their team. I suspect we will have more agents than human employees at some point soon." Major tech companies have laid off thousands of employees this year as they increased their reliance on AI. Armstrong has been pushing for AI to automate more workflows at Coinbase, stating in September that he wants more than 50% of the company's code to be written by AI. A month before, Coinbase said one of its biggest focuses is to transform its more than 4,000-member workforce into "AI-Natives." Coinbase introduces AI agents Fred and Balaji One of the AI agents is Fred, named after Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam. Fred will serve as the company's "strategic executive agent," assisting Coinbase workers with strategic clarity and priority alignment while offering executive-level feedback. The other is Balaji, the agent of chaos and creativity who was modeled after Coinbase's former chief technology officer, Balaji Srinivasan. Balaji has been brought in to challenge assumptions and assist Coinbase employees with thinking outside the box in an effort to "spark innovation." Coinbase has also contributed to the agentic AI wave, having launched the x402 protocol for agentic AI payments on crypto and fiat rails in May 2025. AI agents tipped to play a big role in crypto The move comes amid a broad industry belief that AI agents could become the dominant users of blockchain payments in the coming years. Related: How AI agents can reshape arbitrage in prediction markets Earlier this week, Armstrong predicted there will be "more AI agents transacting online than humans very soon," echoing comments from Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire in January that "literally billions of AI agents" will be transacting onchain in three to five years. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also said in January that crypto is the "native currency for AI agents," which will handle everything from buying tickets to paying bills without credit cards.