As AI agents evolve from answering questions to actually spending money, investors and tech giants are racing to seize control of the financial networks underlying machine-driven commerce.

For years, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood, known as "Wood Sister," has told investors to "follow the developers" when judging where technology is heading next. Now, she believes investors may need to start tracking another entity: AI agents.

"We may increasingly talk about 'following the agents,'" Wood said Wednesday during a roundtable discussion at the Robinhood Summit in Houston. She was referring to AI agents — software capable of performing tasks on behalf of individuals, rather than merely answering questions or generating text.

Wood's remark was brief, coming near the end of a broader discussion about AI, private markets, and technology investing. But it points to a question that is becoming increasingly important as companies race to develop AI agents: What happens when AI no longer just gives people answers, but starts spending their money?

Developers have long been able to help reveal which technologies are gaining momentum, because engineers tend to gravitate toward tools they find useful. If millions of AI agents begin choosing on their own which software, services, and networks to use, their activity could become another way to observe where demand is flowing.

But these agents also need a way to pay. Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of SharpLink and former head of digital assets at BlackRock, said in an article last month that the financial system used by AI agents ultimately should not be controlled by a handful of banks or tech companies.

"A world full of agents, where only a few companies decide where your money can go, is meaningless," Chalom wrote in the final installment of his three-part series on agentic finance.

In Chalom's view, the issue is not just whether AI agents can spend money, but how much authority people will grant them and who controls the financial system behind them. For example, a person could authorize an agent to spend up to $500 on booking a hotel without granting it unlimited access to their bank account. Users should also be able to revoke that authorization and review records of what actions the agent has taken.

Chalom also argues that people should be able to migrate their agents between different financial service providers, rather than being locked into one company's system. Agents should be able to carry their identity, financial information, and permissions to another provider, just as a person can transfer a phone number from one carrier to another.