The agentic web is here

The article traces how LLM-based agents have realized Tim Berners-Lee's long-stalled vision of an internet navigated by autonomous software, with tools like Meta's Muse, OpenAI's Dots and Anthropic's Claude Duet gaining access to inboxes and bank accounts. It examines two competing approaches—agents that use browsers like humans versus tool-based connectors—and explores how agent traffic is reshaping advertising, publishing and e-commerce economics. Experts disagree on whether the human web will persist alongside the agentic one or be transformed by it, with concerns about closed platforms, security incidents and loss of human-centric online spaces.