AI Trade Debates Pit Tom Lee Against Jordi Visser Over Duration

Tom Lee and Jordi Visser recently debated the AI trade on a panel hosted by Fundstrat. While they disagreed on the duration of this trend, they both expect it to be driven by fee-earning networks built for software agents rather than people.

Lee, co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat, argued that just as mobile phones were only the first leg in a larger cycle, AI spending is still in its early stages. He expects financial services to become the downstream market, with equities, gold, and tokens clearing as payment.

Lee highlighted four reasons why banks are ill-equipped to handle agent transactions: trust, proof of funds, lending, and tax collection. In contrast, agents require none of these traditional banking functions, he said.

Lee also pointed out that a proposed Ethereum standard, ERC-8183, already exists on paper, which could facilitate code-based payments. This aligns with his thesis that money is becoming code.

Jordi Visser, who leads AI research at 22V Research and spent two decades at Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers, disagreed with Lee's optimistic view of the AI trade. He expects a compression in growth from seven or eight times to roughly 30% per year instead.