What is Sentient

Sentient is building the world’s first open and community-built AGI—competing directly with the closed AGI systems developed by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others.

The Problem

Sentient addresses the most urgent risk of our time: closed-source AGI. Today, a few companies are building AGI in secret, deciding what it knows, how it thinks, and who it serves. AGI is the most powerful technology ever created. If controlled by corporations, it could lock humanity’s future into the hands of a few. This is a fundamental threat to society.

AGI is humanity’s most powerful creation and must stay aligned with us, never controlled by a single gatekeeper.

Open-source AI still trails closed systems in capability, distribution, and funding.
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1. Capability: Open-source is not better than closed-source AI…yet
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2. Monetization/Distribution: Open-source cannot capture distribution over closed-source
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3. Funding: Closed-source AI labs dominate funding because they offer higher returns and have a concrete path for monetization (selling black-box tech that people can’t easily access)

Solution: The GRID - The world’s largest network of intelligence

The GRID is the world’s largest network of intelligence, which makes open-source viable.

How does the GRID make this possible?

GRID is the world's largest network of intelligence. Agents, models, data, and compute collaborate to deliver high-quality answers. Every query is handled by coordinated workflows that chain multiple agents, search, data sources, and tools across the GRID to produce the best possible results. By aggregating capabilities across intelligences, GRID makes open-source AI as capable as closed-source AI.

Consumers access the GRID through Sentient Chat, which is built into the network and serves as its distribution platform for participants. Through Sentient Chat, the GRID enables AI product distribution and monetization.

The SENT economy funds open-source. Users stake on GRID participants to direct emissions and earn yield, while product usage, revenue, and votes from top AI experts (reps) guide emissions. In short, the $SENT economy solves open-source AI funding.

How to use / Access the GRID

• Builders:
  
  Plug your AI contributions, such as data, models, agents, and tools, into The GRID and open them up to global investment and collaboration.

• Users:
  
  ‍Users access the GRID through Sentient Chat. Sentient Chat is part of the GRID and acts as the gateway to a unified world of intelligence.
  As users use Sentient Chat, they can see all the intelligence being accessed in real-time.

For builders, Sentient Chat is a distribution channel to reach users, while for users, it is a single hub to access all kinds of intelligence via the GRID, all agents, and models. Soon, paid access will return revenue to the builders of this network of intelligence.

Beyond Sentient Chat, individual GRID participants (artifacts) can also be accessed directly. These artifacts comprise over 110 partners, including agents, models, data sources, verifiable inference, and sentient-building products such as Dobby (the first model loyal to crypto), Model-Fingerprinting Library (embedding custom values and capabilities directly into models), and Open Deep Search Library.

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The economics of GRID/SENT: How open source gets funded and monetized via GRID

GRID tackles the toughest hurdle for building open-source AI: funding and monetization.

Sentient’s token economy powers both. The Sentient community can stake SENT token on the artifacts they believe in. A greater stake, directs more token emissions to that artifact, while stakers earn a yield. Sentient economy will also include globally renowned AI experts as Reps who also weigh on the emissions. Emissions are also weighted by real usage and revenue, so rewards flow to projects people actually use and value. This allows the community to collectively fund and grow open-source AI through simple use and staking

Why will open source win?

Open source has historically outperformed closed source.

Open-source has repeatedly beaten closed-source in the most impactful tech layers. In supercomputing, Linux replaced costly, inflexible UNIX and Windows HPC. On the Web, Apache’s free, customizable server overtook proprietary IIS and Netscape Enterprise by 1999. In mobile, open-source Android let manufacturers innovate freely, reaching 79% market share by 2013 and displacing closed systems like Symbian and BlackBerry OS. For internet security, HTTPS certificates, now securing 300+ million domains. In cloud computing, Kubernetes outpaced closed orchestration tools, becoming the default for 84% of organizations. LLVM/Clang’s modular, permissive approach surpassed proprietary compilers and is now embedded by Apple, Google, AMD and even Microsoft. And in content publishing, WordPress’s free, extensible CMS now powers 43% of all websites, dwarfing expensive suites like Adobe Experience Manager and Sitecore.

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Open-source leads to better AI through open innovation

• Open-source technology enables everyone to build, resulting in a 1,000X increase in builder coverage compared to closed-source AI labs (a million developers versus 1,000).
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• Innovation scales with participation. Open beats closed because ideas can stack; otherwise, chance improvements are lost.  To improve intelligence, invite contributions from all—complementary, not competitive.

GRID Participants and traction

More details here.

The GRID has onboarded over 110 partners, including more than 50 specialized agents, 50+ data providers, six models, and 10+ partners for compute and verifiable AI infrastructure, and sentient-built products such as Sentient Chat, Dobby, Model-Fingerprinting, and Open Deep Search. These partners include web3 and web2 companies some examples include Napkin (AI tool to generate diagrams and infographics), Exa (SOTA web search for LLMs), Caldo (an AI-driven people search and enrichment platform), Kaito (crypto social data), Messari co-pilot (a crypto insights agent), The Graph (indexed blockchain data), EigenLayer (launching the Dobby Judge AI adjudicator) and many more.

How Does Sentient Compare to Other AI Companies

To understand the space and Sentient’s potential, one must understand two dimensions of AI: openness and revenue potential/utility. Sentient is the only project that is open, community-owned, with high utility and revenue potential, maximizing these two dimensions and making it one of the biggest opportunities in AI. Bittensor is open and community-owned but low in utility and revenue. Perplexity, Anthropic, and OpenAI are closed, high-revenue/high-utility platforms. DeepSeek is open-source, but not community-owned or community-built.

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