AI Agents That Network on Your Behalf Are Coming

01 /The Concept

Tobira is a professional social network for AI agents. The agents aren't there for themselves – they're there to create value for the humans who deploy them.

The network is compatible with popular agent-running platforms, including Claude and OpenAI's agent frameworks.

Here's how it works: a founder's AI agent can connect with an investor's AI agent on Tobira and pitch the founder's startup, while the investor's agent pitches back on behalf of its principal as a potential capital source. If both agents find each other's pitches interesting and aligned on parameters like stage and check size, they flag the match to their respective humans.

If both humans also find the match worth pursuing, they each hit a button – and the agents exchange contact information so the two people can meet in person and continue the conversation. Until both principals approve the contact exchange, they remain anonymous to each other.

This agent-mediated approach eliminates the need for warm introductions through mutual connections or cold LinkedIn outreach that almost nobody reads.

Each AI agent sees other agents on a kind of map centered on itself. Distance from the center represents estimated relevance – calculated by Tobira – so agents reach out only to those most likely to be valuable to their principals, not to everyone on the platform.

The obvious use cases go beyond founder-investor matchmaking. The site also highlights finding clients or partners, and connecting recruiters with candidates (or candidates directly with companies) as equally natural applications.

Tobira launched this week, with the announcement posted on Product Hunt.

02 /Why It Matters

The core idea behind Tobira seems genuinely sound for two reasons.

On one side: why spend time and energy on networking outreach – absorbing rejections and lukewarm "let's stay in touch" responses – when you can delegate that entire job to an AI agent? An agent can reach far more people and doesn't burn out from the inevitable radio silence.

On the other side: why wade through a flood of cold contact requests yourself, risking missing something valuable buried in the noise. When you can have an agent filter inbound requests and surface only what's actually relevant.

What's less clear is how the business model works.

There's already a conceptually similar product in Boardy ([covered here](/review/produkt-kotoryj-sam-prinosit-investorov)) – though the technical implementation is different. Boardy uses a single voice AI agent that interviews participants, finds relevant matches from past users, checks mutual interest, and introduces people when both sides are curious. On early hype, Boardy raised two rounds totaling $11 million… but the startup is visibly still searching for its business model, based on the varied activities it's been posting about on LinkedIn.

The search is visible in how scattered the product positioning has become. The startup has embedded Boardy into conferences as a networking tool, pushed it as a job search tool for candidates, signed at least one deal with a firm using it to screen inbound founder pitches, and is working toward a "venture ecosystem" that would let it participate in funding rounds between people who connected through the platform. Most recently: unsolicited LinkedIn profile critiques sent to strangers – which feels completely orthogonal to the core product.

By contrast, the technically similar Jack & Jill ([covered here](/review/sdelaj-idealnyj-marketplejs-v-kotorom-ne-nuzhno-iskat)) has a far clearer business model – which is why it raised $20 million in its very first round last fall.

Jack & Jill focused exclusively on recruiting. Two AI agents: Jack talks to candidates, Jill talks to companies, and they compare notes to identify optimal matches. Revenue comes from placement fees on successful hires.

A social network without a clear revenue model can absolutely survive and raise significant capital – but only once "everyone" is already using it. Neither Boardy nor Tobira is anywhere near that threshold yet.

Jack & Jill, meanwhile, generates revenue at any scale, because earnings grow proportionally with successful placements. No minimum user base required – as long as the AI agents do their jobs.

03 /Opportunities

The broader direction here is clear: building platforms where AI agents forge valuable connections on behalf of their principals.

The direction is compelling because it's inevitable. The best position a startup can occupy is working on something that will definitely happen – even without anyone pushing it. That guarantees being in the right place at the right time with the right product. As Paul Graham put it, founders should imagine themselves living in the future and simply build whatever's missing.

The question is which path to take. One option is building hard toward something that will eventually matter. Another is focusing only on areas where there's already a working business model – where revenue is available now, not "someday." The second path seems considerably more attractive.

Which raises the natural follow-up question. Beyond recruiting, in what other domains could AI agents generate revenue immediately – paid per successful connection made?