As AI agents become a bigger topic in crypto, Pranav Ramesh told CoinDesk that Nasdaq is already using them across several areas of its business and has significantly expanded that use over the last 18 months or so.
Ramesh, head of options research at Nasdaq and co-founder and CTO of Leadpoet, said the most significant change has been that of confidence. “AI agents are relatively new and have probably been used more and more over the last six months,” he said, arguing that previous systems too often faltered for sensitive enterprise workflows.
He said Nasdaq uses AI agents in areas such as market surveillance, compliance and market microstructure analysis, and highlighted Nasdaq Verafin’s “Agentic AI Workforce,” which Nasdaq says automates “low-value, high-volume compliance processes” in anti-money laundering efforts.
Ramesh also highlighted the AI-powered Nasdaq order type. Nasdaq announced in 2023 that its Dynamic M-ELO order type had become the first AI-based trading order type approved by the SEC, using an AI model with more than 140 factors to adapt to real-time market conditions.
For Ramesh, this experience explains how he views cryptography. He said cryptocurrency trading platforms are likely to aggressively adopt AI agents for internal operations and retail-facing tools, including position analysis, trade suggestions and execution assistance. “The crypto trading world is actually going to take the lead in how AI is used in the retail environment,” he said.
He did not describe this change as completely self-sustaining. Instead, he said the model he envisions is one in which agents handle most of the analysis and workflow while humans retain final approval. In the interview, he said that at Nasdaq, many systems still fail to achieve full automation, with human review remaining the last step.
AI and AI agents will replace much of human labor
Ramesh’s views are also unusually direct on work. “Yes, it will require a lot of jobs,” he said of AI agents, adding that he believes lower-level roles in software, customer service and analysts are already being displaced as systems become faster, cheaper and more reliable. He presented this as an observable trend rather than a prediction.
And he seems to be right as companies, the most recent of which being Crypto.com, laid off 12% of its staff in an effort to increase automation and efficiency through AI. Previously, crypto research firm Messari parted ways with several members of its staff and its chief executive as the company became what the new CEO called an “AI-driven company.” Last month, Block, the payments company founded by Jack Dorsey, announced plans to cut 40% of its workforce, or more than 4,000 people, citing improved AI models.
The AI trend led to the creation of Leadpoet
This thesis also shaped his path to Leadpoet, the startup he co-founded with Gavin Zaentz. According to a company fact sheet from February 2026, the two met at Nasdaq and founded the company after repeatedly encountering the same problem: Outbound tools could generate static listings, but identifying actual buying intent still required manual research.
Leadpoet describes itself as an AI-powered lead qualification platform that transforms web signals and business context into “decision-ready lead recommendations,” emphasizing “accuracy over volume.” The company says it supports private deployments so customers can assess their intent and generate a delivery on their own data without exposing it to a provider.
The factsheet states that Leadpoet uses Bittensor, which describes itself as a decentralized blockchain-powered AI network that allows participants to contribute models and calculations while earning rewards. Ramesh said a decentralized, competitive structure is part of the appeal because it can improve models faster than a centralized roadmap.
Leadpoet also says it is a member of NVIDIA Inception, NVIDIA’s startup program for AI companies. NVIDIA describes Inception as a free program that offers technical resources, go-to-market support, and access to its broader ecosystem.
In the company’s February 2026 factsheet, Leadpoet says it achieved an annualized run rate of $1 million in its first quarter after launch and received support from the DSV Fund and Astrid. In that same document, Siam Kidd, CIO of DSV Fund, said that Ramesh and Zaentz combine “deep expertise in AI engineering with a real understanding of day-to-day sales.”
Ramesh directly linked the company to what he says he’s seen at large institutions adopting AI: agents moving from assistants to systems capable of handling real operational work. In crypto, he said, this change will likely become visible more quickly than in many other areas of finance.
