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We told you. Two months ago we told you the agents were coming, that a new wave of autonomous agents were coming to schedule your appointments and buy your groceries.
It was a new internet, we told you. An internet mediated by agents that are built to browse pages, click buttons, and send emails on your behalf, without your supervision but with your blessing.
Over the course of this year, we told you that a new internet was already here, but unevenly distributed. We told you this was all happening in spite of inter-generational shunning and graduation booing and all the negative headlines about AI slop and hard-to-find jobs.
In case you think I am cherry-picking successful predictions, I feel duty bound to remind you that we did not foresee everything. We did NOT tell you that AI has a 10% chance of killing every human on earth. We missed that one.
We provoked you to question your skepticism of this technology: What are you afraid of?
Two months later, at the front door of Q4 of the most transformative year in the history of the internet, we are starting to get an answer:
You are not afraid of anything.
A new crop of personal AI agents is taking over the app store and the tech headlines. That they are popular is no surprise to us. What is surprising is how isolating they are.
PROVOCATION OF THE WEEK
Have your agent call my agent
Personal agents are simultaneously an amazing and rudimentary experience. On one hand, it is genuinely magical to witness your personal agent browse a website for you, literally clicking from page to page with persistent intention.
On the other hand, it’s still just browsing a website. We already do that. It works great in solo tasks and feels awkward when other people are involved.
When my agent contacts your agent, it is adding a new mediating layer to an internet that is already crowded with media. It’s like adding one more lane to the superhighway.
Does that ever cut traffic?
What’s Next
If you have thoughts, feedback, or a perspective worth sharing, reach out: chmiel@ondiscourse.com. You might see your reaction in next week’s edition.
ON_Member Events
ON_Breakfast Club for AI Leaders: Are Generative Interfaces the Future of UI?
Wednesday, October 07, 9am - 11am
NYC
Design systems were built to guarantee consistency. Generative interfaces promise to do the opposite. Either the system becomes a set of constraints a model has to work with, or brands stop living in the UI at all.
When the interface is generated, there is no wireframe to review, no early concepts to sign off on, no one to blame when it doesn’t deliver. Does this change our relationship with brand and experience?
People have muscle memory when it comes to interacting with digital experiences. When an interface reshapes itself around an individual user, it might test well but it might not actually deliver on its promise. It might be novel, but will it matter?
Join ON_Discourse and a small group from design, UX and product world’s on Wednesday, October 7 during Advertising Week for an off-record conversation about who owns the interface in a generative world.
Thanks to our sponsors Code and Theory and Domain.
ON_Discourse Speakeasy: Advertising Week
Wednesday, October 07, 6pm - 8pm
NYC
A break from our traditional format, our Speakeasy is a more informal opportunity to catch up with ON_Discourse members and special guests for an evening of delicious cocktails and food.
Thanks to our sponsors Domain.