Who Owns the AI Agent Economy? Rethinking Marketplaces, Data Sovereignty, and True Agency

AI agents are accelerating toward mass adoption, reshaping industries, and redefining how businesses operate. As Gigi Levy-Weiss discusses in his recent NFX article, AI agent marketplaces are emerging as the dominant structure for transacting, specializing, and scaling AI capabilities. The marketplace model is compelling—offering SMBs access to powerful AI-driven services at unprecedented speed and scale. But there’s a critical missing piece in this conversation: who owns and controls the marketplace and value exchange?

This question is at the heart of the agentic economy. Without explicit ownership and governance frameworks, AI agents risk becoming extraction tools rather than empowerment. While the marketplace approach suggests broad access to AI services, it does not inherently address the sovereignty of data, knowledge, or transactions generated within these systems. Who ensures that AI agents serve the interests of individuals and businesses rather than reinforcing centralized control structures? Without clear frameworks for agency, any "self-organizing" system risks defaulting to centralized control mechanisms—whether intentional or emergent.

Intent, Action, and the True Origin of Data Ownership

At the core of data sovereignty is intent, a uniquely human quality that AI agents do not and cannot possess. Intent is the precursor to action, and action is what creates data assets. Without intent, there is no purposeful decision, deliberate effort, or meaningful agency—only computational outputs that lack true ownership. This is where the current data ownership paradigm fundamentally breaks down.

Most discussions about data ownership begin at the moment of digital instantiation—when a system records, stores, or processes data. This assumption is flawed because it ignores the true moment of data origination: human intent leading to action. A business strategy, creative work, financial transaction, or even simple communication does not begin when a system captures it; it starts with the person or entity making a conscious decision to act. This action produces a data asset, but its first-party ownership does not start when a database logs it—it begins with the human or entity that initiated the intent leading to that action.

This oversight has created the crux of the data ownership problem in today’s digital economy. By focusing ownership only on what is recorded rather than what was intended and enacted, we have enabled intermediaries to claim control over data assets that were never theirs. Digital platforms, AI-driven systems, and marketplaces routinely operate under the assumption that because they store, process, or refine data, they are its rightful owners. This logic is fundamentally flawed. Data does not become an owned asset because a system captures it—it is an owned asset because someone with intent acted to create it.

Data Sovereignty as the Atomic Component of AI Systems

At Ambient Enterprises, we believe data sovereignty must be the atomic component of the foundation of the AI agent economy. AI agents must remain tethered to their rightful data owners—individuals, SMEs, or larger enterprises—ensuring that data remains an owned and enforceable asset rather than an abstract input for broader agentic functions. Without this, AI agents could become conduits for unchecked data exploitation, where insights, decisions, and automation serve external platforms rather than the data originator.

Through Ambient Twin? and DAC? technologies, we are redefining AI agent interactions by embedding explicit representation, insight, control, and choice at the data level. This ensures that smart global citizens can assert ownership, enforce terms, and control interactions within AI ecosystems rather than being passive participants in a marketplace designed to serve platform-scale aggregators. Instead of optimizing AI access, our approach secures agentic rights within data flows, reinforcing a framework where autonomous agents operate within explicit ownership models, not just within transactional marketplaces.

This perspective aligns with broader initiatives, including the CIM "neural network simulation to inception" framework and the CommunityLink Open Data Ecology (CODE) model, emphasizing self-organizing systems for smart global citizens. However, self-organizing alone is not enough—without sovereignty-driven architectures, AI marketplaces could reproduce the same power imbalances seen in previous technology revolutions. The shift toward AI-driven economies must be met with a corresponding shift in governance, ensuring that AI agents, transactions, and the value they generate remain accountable to their rightful stakeholders.

The AI revolution should not be about access alone. It should be about ownership, governance, and true agency. The real opportunity lies in defining not just where AI agents transact, specialize, and evolve but also in ensuring that they do so in human terms, with explicit safeguards and sovereign control over their actions and outcomes. This is the future we are building. The question is: who truly owns the AI-driven economy? The answer must be the individuals, businesses, and communities that generate its value.

A special thank you to Michael Robbins for pointing us to this article and driving the discussion, as well as for providing leadership in this space. These conversations are crucial in shaping the trajectory of AI governance and ensuring that AI agents serve as enablers of sovereignty rather than instruments of centralization.

? 2025 Synovient, Inc. All rights reserved.??This document has been placed in a DAC? before public release. Synovient Inc. utilizes its DAC? as an immutable record of provenance, distribution, and enforceable terms of use. Unauthorized access, use, reproduction, distribution, or disclosure of this document, in whole or in part, may be unlawful, and Synovient reserves the right to retract rights of access to its copyrighted content in the event of misuse.? Synovient Inc. further reserves all rights in relation to this document and its certified DAC? instance.

Francesc Guim PhD Ian Wilson Charlie Northrup James Wigginton Chris Medina Jack Crawford Khalid Raza Susan Marek

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