Generative AI Fundamentals Map

Map/Trust and governance/Wave 9

Reputation and credentials

Trust that crosses company boundaries.

capabilitySpeculative Open on the map →

Facts

Lane: Trust and governance
Wave: 9 of 12 (build order, not a date)
Needs: 17 boxes all the way back through hard links
Unlocks: 1 boxes downstream through hard links
Leverage: 0.1 points · stands in the way of 1 of 53 stages · rank 52 of 57
Cluster: Trust plumbing and the agent economy

Evidence as of October 2026

DeepMind proposes decentralised identifiers, reputation built from past interactions, and verifiable credentials for agents.

01Virtual Agent Economies (Google DeepMind)

Around it

Needs · 2

Agent identity and permissionscapability · Emerging
Audit and attributioncapability · Emerging

Unlocks · 3

Agent economiesstage · Speculative
AI-run capital allocationstage · Speculative · helps, not required
Institutions for agent societiescapability · Speculative · helps, not required

Loops and off-ramps

Capex pullbackoff-ramp · cut off
Taiwan chip disruptionoff-ramp · cut off
Power shortfalloff-ramp · cut off
Capability plateauoff-ramp · cut off
Training data ruled outoff-ramp · slowed

Openings researchers' judgement, October 2026 scouting

Startup room 50/100 · rank 35 of 124 Research room 36/100 · rank 100 of 124

Crowding4 Lab overlap4 Small-team fit3 Buyer today4 Research openness3

Depth: light
Players: Baselayer ($35m); Vijil ($17m); Alien ($7.1m); Entrust; ITU
Wedge: Sybil-resistant agent reputation that carries across platforms (portable reputation is about 2 on crowding). startup