AI Agents, the future of the Internet

Last week, I was reading another great column, The internet will soon need warnings for AI-generated content, written by Mark Ritson, who — if you are interested and serious about marketing — you should extensively study.

The topic discussed was about the use of AI in marketing and how the communication channels will get flooded even more than they are now.

It talked about how AI will produce tons of content, which other AI entities will read and repeat. There were also questions about where the human creators of ads will fit, as well as how this overabundance of AI-generated content will lead to the rise of new platforms for humans only.

All very interesting.

Yes, various platforms are already trying to either ban or label AI-generated content. Images and videos are being watermarked or tagged by the authoring platforms. Some even resorted to image poisoning.

I would propose an alternative vision for the future.

Almost a year ago, you might remember a post I wrote called Personal Web where I mused how, along the way from mainframe to PC on your desk, we moved back to mainframe, aka cloud, and somehow lost the personal part along the way.

True, Microsoft is always trying to bring back some level of personalization, such as with Clippy, or its latest fiasco, where the company 'recalled' this amazing feature before it hit the shelves.

If you are wondering why Microsoft is not that great with anything personal, check out this video. But enough of beating a dead horse.

It all has to do with the explosive growth of information available online.

Side note: The occurrence of the term, 'explosive growth' (which I really don't like) peaked around 1995 and, since then, has been in steady decline.

We started with mailing lists, websites, blogs, social networks. Later, we added mobile phones with all the apps and notifications. And all these things demand our attention and actually are designed to keep us glued to the screen for hours. With the new, shiny thing called AI, the level of noise just keeps going up.

That's why I think that change will happen. You can start seeing the signs already.

We are moving to the age of the Personal Web, where we insert another layer of technology between us and the internet.

It will be the collection of AI agents either directly on your device or working on your behalf somewhere in the cloud, which will help you to manage the noise. These agents will gather information for you, learn what you like and what you are interested in. You will be the one providing directions, setting tasks to be done or requesting information. I am sure you will be able to 'browse the Internet' like in the good old days when people went on scavenger hunts. But who has the time to search using Google, visiting websites and searching for the best available deal?

There will be a new internet where agents will communicate with each other, exchanging information, negotiating deals or looking for new and upcoming patterns. This is where concepts from the Web3 playground, with its smart contracts and various tokens, will come to play.

We have the technology to make it happen. A new recurrent pattern is upon us.