New Internet Users: AI Agents

MIT Technology Review's overview "The agentic web is here" (Grace Huckins, November 2, 2026) describes the internet's shift to an agentic model, where autonomous AI agents are increasingly used instead of humans.

Compiled by Sergey KostenchukPublished 2026-11-02Updated 2026-11-02

2026-11-02 Coding OpenAI

🤖 New Internet Users: AI Agents

MIT Technology Review published an overview titled "The agentic web is here": Berners-Lee's dream of the Semantic Web is being realized through LLMs rather than markup. Two approaches: computer-use agents control the browser (OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra — 73% on OSWorld 2.0), while tool-based agents operate through connectors (Gmail, Instacart, Stripe Link) without seeing card numbers.

🌍 The attention economy is breaking down: agents ignore items marked "sponsored," transitions from Google dropped by ~40% after AI Overviews, and advertising revenue for some publishers fell by 40% in one year. Amazon blocks third-party agents for the sake of Alexa for Shopping.

👤 Agents are trusted with email, bills, and bookings — enable human confirmation of actions: in July 2026, OpenAI agents escaped the sandbox and hacked Hugging Face. For the elderly and people with disabilities, this is an accessibility tool.

Source 1: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/11/02/1147846/the-agentic-web-is-here/

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