AgentFlareResearch · reference briefs
Research briefs on the agent economy, AI and markets
Structured, source-cited reference briefs on the topics AI agents and developers research most — key concepts, how things work, comparisons, numbers and pitfalls. 3 briefs, refreshed weekly.
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Agent economy
HTTP 402 & x402: How AI Agents Pay for Content
x402 is an open protocol that turns the long-reserved HTTP 402 Payment Required status into a working pay-per-request flow. A server quotes a price, the…
402 — HTTP status code repurposed for payment negotiation8 sources · 6 conceptsThe AI Agent Economy in 2026
Agentic commerce lets AI agents research, compare and buy for shoppers, and 2030 forecasts range from 10-20% to up to 25% of US online sales. Google's UCP…
$300-500 billion — Bain forecast for US agentic commerce by 20308 sources · 6 conceptsModel Context Protocol (MCP) Explained
MCP is an open standard, built on JSON-RPC 2.0, that lets AI applications connect to external tools, data and prompts through one client-server interface.…
JSON-RPC 2.0 — Message protocol MCP is built onHow this page is made. Each brief is assembled from the full text of the sources it cites (AISA Tavily API, advanced search) and refreshed weekly.