Chainalysis adds 'natural language' AI agents to its blockchain investigation platform

Leading blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis is adding artificial intelligence agents to its platform, lowering the technical know-how needed for launching plain-language investigations into crypto financial relationships.

"This is a really important moment for reducing the barrier to entry to blockchain intelligence," Chainalysis co-founder and CEO Jonathan Levin told CoinDesk in an interview. Not only law enforcement officers, but also more people from traditional finance increasingly need to understand the movement of digital assets over blockchain transactions.

"We're at this moment where you need to be able to access that intelligence without all of the history of working in crypto for a long time," Levin said. The new tool to assemble custom AI agents will be embedded in his company's platform and allow non-technical requests to build tailored investigations backed by the depth and breadth of approach needed for serious investigation, including audit trails and standards of evidence.

The agents, said to be rolling out over the summer, can help users identify what analysis they'll need and which transactions may be relevant, Levin said, and the work will be informed by some 10 million investigations conducted within the Chainalysis Reactor software. This is not just a chatbot, he emphasized.

The Chainalysis announcement comes quickly on the heels of competitor TRM Labs' similar announcement that its users now have agentic support, suggesting that a new AI era is starting for blockchain analytics. The criminal operations they analyze have already begun using AI themselves.

Chainalysis is the top analytics partner for law enforcement agencies that increasingly need to figure out how criminals are moving assets across blockchains and across borders.

"People can actually build their own agents to be able to produce bespoke workflow for whatever they're doing," Levin said. "Every enterprise is different. Every law enforcement agency may have some different pieces of work that they have to do, and so we are building a platform for them to build those agents."