📊 Full opportunity report: The Skills Marketplace Nobody Is Building Yet on ThorstenMeyerAI.com — validation score, market gap, and execution plan.
TL;DR
While an open standard and several reference implementations for AI skills exist, there is no dedicated marketplace for deploying, discovering, or monetizing these skills. This gap presents a significant opportunity for companies to establish a dominant position in AI infrastructure.
Despite the emergence of an open standard for AI skills and multiple reference implementations, there is currently no dedicated marketplace for deploying, discovering, or monetizing AI skills, representing a significant gap in the AI infrastructure landscape.
The open standard for AI skills was published by Anthropic in December 2025 at agentskills.io, establishing a common format (SKILL.md) for configuration and instructions. Several companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Vercel, have developed reference implementations and collections of skills, but these are confined within their ecosystems or tools, with no unified marketplace platform. Currently, skills are hosted on directories like SkillsMP, ClaudeWorld, and GitHub, but these are discovery layers without monetization or vetting processes. There is no cross-surface portability, meaning skills uploaded to one platform are not available on others, and no revenue-sharing mechanisms exist. The security verification remains informal, relying on source trust rather than formal audits. The marketplace layer, which would enable discovery, monetization, and security standards, is missing, creating a critical gap in the AI ecosystem.The skills marketplace.
The directory exists. The marketplace doesn’t. Here’s the gap — and who closes it.
There are 140+ free Agent Skills on community marketplaces today. 17 official Anthropic skills under Apache 2.0. A published open standard at agentskills.io that OpenAI’s Codex CLI adopted. Microsoft, Google, Vercel publishing skill collections. And no skills equivalent of the App Store. No revenue share. No vetted-author verification. No security audit pipeline. No paid skills at all.
Folder. Frontmatter. Instructions.
A skill is a directory containing a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter and Markdown instructions, plus optional scripts and templates. Progressive disclosure: the agent loads only metadata into context until the skill becomes relevant. The format is simple. The implication is significant.
AI skills marketplace platform
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The directory exists. The marketplace doesn’t.
Five layers, in roughly the order they emerged. The first five are real and growing. The last five are the capture gaps — each is a real product, each is uncaptured, and any company that solves four of five wins the layer.
agentskills.io · Anthropic + OpenAI · Dec 2025
CRAFTERIAN Horror Tarot Cards, 78 Cards Deck with Foil Edges, Original for Beginners and Experts with Guide Book, Fortune Telling Game, Divination Tools for All Skill Levels.
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The platform owner’s incentives do not align with the developer’s.
Same structural problem that produced the App Store / Play Store / Steam separation in mobile and gaming. The platform owner extracts rent at the marketplace layer; the developer wants to publish once and distribute everywhere. The two only align if a third party owns the marketplace.
Skills as a platform retention feature.
- Cross-surface friction is a soft retention mechanism, not a bug
- Partner directory is curated to drive distribution into their stack
- Revenue share competes with the lab’s own enterprise sales motion
- Verified-publisher status is awkward when the auditor is also the model vendor
- Skills tied to one model = same problem the standard was built to solve
Three fronts the labs cannot credibly compete on.
- Cross-surface neutrality — “publish once, run on any model”
- Verified-publisher status as a paid security service
- 70/30 revenue share creates incentives for vertical specialists
- Trust calculation is cleaner: auditor ≠ model vendor
- Wins by being the only neutral broker between labs and enterprise
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Smaller than you assumed. Closer than you think.
~20 engineers · $30–50M Series A · founded 2026 H2 / 2027 H1. Reference: Replicate’s positioning in model hosting — neutral, multi-vendor, developer-first. The challenge is distribution.
GitHub (= Microsoft, conflict). Cursor. Replit. Linear. The most legible path is “GitHub Skills” — but Microsoft competes at the model layer, reproducing the original problem.
Harvey in legal · a healthcare-AI company yet to emerge · Bloomberg in finance. Slower path, structurally stronger trust position. Customer never has to ask “is this skill safe?”
AI Monetization Mastery(English) : Earning from AI Skills – Build Smart Income Streams Using Artificial Intelligence (Book no:6) (AI Automation Series)
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The 2026 H2 author looks like the 2007 YouTube creator.
Write the skills now. Capture when the marketplace ships.
The capture mechanism does not yet exist. Skills you write today have no way to charge for themselves. This is a feature, not a bug, for the next 12 months. Write skills, accumulate authorship reputation, build a portfolio that becomes legible the moment a marketplace with revenue share goes live.
The directory exists. The marketplace doesn’t. Whoever builds it captures the most defensible position in the post-model AI stack.
Four assignments. By role.
Start writing skills now.
The marketplace doesn’t exist yet but the reputation system runs on what you publish in 2026. The early-mover advantage when the marketplace ships is real. GitHub stars compound into discoverable authorship.
The window is open. Funding is favorable through Q3.
The standard is set, the demand is forming, the labs won’t build it themselves, and the second-mover penalty in marketplaces is severe. The “App Store of agents” thesis is investable today.
Demand a skill governance roadmap.
If your AI vendor’s answer is “we trust Anthropic to vet skills,” the answer is incomplete. Demand SIEM integration, audit logging, enterprise approval workflows. Current admin controls are a starting line.
The position is winnable in 2026 H2.
Natural fits: GitHub, Cursor, Replit. If you build developer tooling but aren’t one of those, you have 12 months to figure out whether your product becomes a skills publishing channel — or watches the value flow past it.
Why the Lack of a Skills Marketplace Matters
The absence of a dedicated marketplace limits the ability for developers, organizations, and vendors to monetize and securely share AI skills, hindering ecosystem growth. Building such a marketplace could become a strategic advantage, enabling interoperability, trust, and monetization, and shaping the future of AI infrastructure. Companies that establish this layer early could dominate the post-model-commoditization era, where skills become the core unit of value rather than the models themselves.Open Standard and Ecosystem Development Milestones
The open standard for AI skills was published in December 2025, providing a common format for configuration and instructions. Several reference implementations exist, including Anthropic’s native support and integrations by OpenAI in Codex CLI and ChatGPT. Community directories like SkillsMP and ClaudeWorld host over 140 free skills, but these are discovery platforms without monetization or vetting. The ecosystem is fragmented, with no cross-surface compatibility or formal security protocols. The market has yet to develop a dedicated platform that consolidates discovery, security, and monetization, leaving a significant gap in the infrastructure layer that supports AI application development.“The marketplace layer does not exist yet, despite the open standard and reference implementations. This is the critical missing piece for ecosystem growth.”
— Thorsten Meyer
Unclear Next Steps for Building the Skills Marketplace
It is not yet clear which companies will take the lead in developing a unified skills marketplace, or how quickly such a platform could be established given current fragmentation and lack of security standards. The regulatory and security frameworks needed for enterprise adoption are also still evolving, adding to the uncertainty.Potential Pathways and Timelines for Marketplace Development
Developers and companies are likely to begin forming early marketplace prototypes within the next 9 to 18 months, focusing on security, vetting, and cross-platform compatibility. Industry alliances or major platform providers could step in to establish standards and infrastructure, accelerating the ecosystem’s maturation. Regulatory and enterprise security frameworks will also influence the pace and scope of marketplace deployment.Key Questions
Why is there no marketplace for AI skills yet?
While open standards and community collections exist, a dedicated, secure, and monetizable marketplace has not been developed due to fragmentation, lack of security protocols, and the absence of a unified platform infrastructure.
Who stands to benefit most from a skills marketplace?
Companies that build or facilitate the development of such a marketplace could gain a dominant position in AI infrastructure, capturing value through discovery, security, and monetization of skills.
What are the main challenges in creating this marketplace?
Challenges include establishing security and vetting standards, enabling cross-surface portability, creating discovery and ranking mechanisms, and developing a sustainable revenue model.
When might a skills marketplace realistically emerge?
Industry insiders suggest a timeline of roughly 9 to 18 months for initial prototypes and early platforms, with broader adoption depending on standardization and enterprise trust frameworks.
How does this gap affect AI product development?
Without a marketplace, organizations and developers cannot easily monetize or share their skills securely across platforms, potentially limiting innovation and ecosystem growth.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
