Agentic Economy & MCP Standard - The agentic economy is emerging, where AI agents can interact, find counterparts, and purchase services from other agents, businesses, or tools [4] - MCP (Message Communication Protocol) is becoming a standard for agentic interaction, dominating the space compared to Open API and Google's A2A [8][9] - Tool discovery, a key feature of MCP, allows agents to dynamically discover and use tools based on the workflow, differentiating it from Open API [7][8] - A centralized marketplace of MCP services, like APIFY, can provide access to various services with a single API token, enabling rapid scaling of the ecosystem [12] APIFY's Role & Marketplace - APIFY is a marketplace of 5,000 tools (actors), primarily data extraction tools, with a community of creators who monetize their tools [4] - Actors are self-contained software units with defined input and output, facilitating easy integration with other systems [4][5] - APIFY has integrations with workflow automation tools and MCP, enabling AI agents to call actors from the marketplace [6][7] - APIFY enables publishing and monetization of tools or agents, providing access to a broad ecosystem of developers and visibility [23][24] Challenges & Future - Agents currently rely on human developers for access to tools and services, hindering their ability to autonomously find and purchase services [10][11] - Trust between agents and tools is a key open question, as is the overall value and reliability of autonomous tool discovery [25][26][27] - The company paid out over $4 million to creators last month, with actors generating over $500,000 per month, indicating rapid ecosystem growth [23]