Final week each Microsoft and Google held main developer conferences with one frequent theme: Tech giants have moved on from speaking about chatbots and language fashions to focusing predominantly on AI brokers.

AI agents are to some extent a shiny new factor that tech firms are dangling in entrance of our eyes, maybe out of necessity as a result of generative AI still hasn’t quite caught up with the hype. However it’s additionally a know-how that may create actual advantages, particularly for automation in companies should you see it as a pure evolution of applied sciences similar to RPA. 

However similar to when chatbots arrived, plenty of the advertising is about AI brokers making every part simpler for particular person customers, peculiar individuals, and above all, plenty of two conferences ended up being concerning the internet and the issues individuals do there.

Google appears to be going all in on its “AI Mode,” which it purports to be the way forward for internet looking out. In brief, Google’s AI brokers will Google for you, current you with info they assume you need, or perform tasks for you like shopping for tickets or reserving restaurant reservations. This is step one towards tying every part collectively right into a ubiquitous AI assistant that can deal with all of your planning and carry out a ton of duties in your behalf.

Microsoft, for its half, needs to put the muse for what it calls “the agentic internet,” which is a little bit of the identical factor however extra targeted on infrastructure. The corporate is implementing protocols similar to Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent2Agent, which allow AI brokers to speak with each other, and it has launched the NLWeb protocol, which can allow any web site to have its personal AI performance and develop into appropriate with any agent that wishes to make use of it.

The targets listed below are apparent: Net shopping and on-line duties are usually not one thing that it is best to must do; every part needs to be taken care of for you by AI brokers.

An AI-mediated imaginative and prescient of the longer term

The issues are additionally apparent, however the tech giants don’t appear to need to acknowledge them. One downside that won’t be solved is that generative AI fashions nonetheless can’t be trusted. They’re good at many issues and may be disciplined for particular duties via coaching on very particular knowledge, however for common information the error charge is way too excessive. Sadly, it appears a bit just like the suppliers of those fashions assume that’s the way it needs to be; so now we transfer on.

One other “downside,” if you wish to name it that, is the query of whether or not individuals even need this. The extra new tech firms current, the clearer it turns into that growth is pushed by what is feasible, not by what’s in demand. My impression is that individuals generally are already getting uninterested in AI being pushed all over the place, however what we now have seen thus far is seemingly not even shut to what’s to return. 

I personally discover it fairly enjoyable to plan my holidays and would by no means dream of letting an AI resolve what pants I ought to put on or what present my mom ought to get for Mom’s Day (even when it’s flowers). For instance, I noticed somebody writing enthusiastically about an AI agent with the ability to plan his daughter’s birthday celebration. Isn’t that what you, like, reside for?

Anyway, maybe the largest downside whenever you have a look at the online and the digital financial system is that these options considerably assume that each one web sites, all content material, all companies and all merchandise can be found to brokers simply as they’re out there to common customers as we speak. However then you definately fully ignore why the content material and companies are there within the first place. 

For instance, a newspaper is on-line to achieve its readers, promote subscriptions or commercials, and create relationships between the newspaper and the hopefully rising readership. In the identical manner, different promoting firms are on-line to promote their merchandise but in addition to construct model loyalty and long-term relationships with prospects to create repeat gross sales.

Now, as an alternative, the content material and merchandise shall be consumed by AI brokers within the first tier, to probably attain prospects within the second tier. The direct relationship between firm and buyer disappears. Management over commercialize your content material or companies is handed over to another person. The incentives to also have a presence on the net are drastically diminished.

It may be identified that that is already a actuality, primarily by way of Google Search and the massive marketplaces. However firms’ dependence on being seen on Google is double-edged to say the least. Google has actually enabled a variety and visibility that for a lot of firms has meant every part for his or her enterprise. On the similar time, there’s hardly any firm that actually needs to be depending on Google — direct buyer relationships are at all times preferable.

Now, nevertheless, that dependence is changing into even better, and of a unique variety. Through the years, firms have realized spend advertising cash on issues like search engine optimization in order that prospects will see you. Now that advertising shall be performed in the direction of AI brokers as an alternative? As a result of apparently it’s the AI brokers who will make buying selections for patrons? Thrilling.

Existential disaster forward

The large Google dependence can be why it will likely be virtually inconceivable to “say no” to this. On the content material aspect, Google has already knowledgeable publishers that they will actually deny the AI ​​bots free entry to all content material on newspaper websites. However that might imply that Google would stop indexing the sites altogether — saying no to AI means saying no to being seen on Google. This in flip signifies that solely these media firms with sufficient of their very own muscle may have the sources to even exist.

Equally, firms that promote services and products shall be pressured to simply accept doing enterprise with AI brokers, as a result of in any other case the AI ​​brokers will merely make “their” purchases from a competitor as an alternative.

Should you look into the oracle, it’s straightforward to see gigantic antitrust investigations right here, as a result of how do you guarantee free competitors when offers are made by AI brokers in an AI-controlled market? It’s going to undoubtedly be attention-grabbing to know.

You could just like the visions which are being painted, or not, however it’s most likely truthful to say that the “agentic internet” means the dying of the online as we all know it as we speak. As a result of what Google and Microsoft see forward is one thing fully completely different — not simply on the floor however essentially.

Paradoxically, this additionally leaves a gap to carry the online again to life — the outdated internet, the one we had earlier than first algorithms after which AI fashions took over. 

An internet that was constructed on human-created and -selected content material, on private suggestions, on direct relationships between firms and prospects. The place digital was the connection, the glue, the enabler, and never the product itself.

In fact, that might require extra from customers than the totally automated AI world guarantees, and it’s unlikely to occur. However should you can put in your nostalgic glasses and dream slightly, wouldn’t that be fairly great?