Making the internet better for AI agents might make it worse for everyone else
MIT Technology Review James O'Donnell ● Covered by 3 sources
Personal AI agents are increasingly being released and used to browse and negotiate on the web, but many websites are blocking them and platforms may redesign the internet around agent traffic. Agentic web traffic tripled from August to September. As a result, customer-facing websites and verification flows could become harder for human browsing while rules evolve over whether agents can access sites and bargain for better deals.
Why it matters
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Until recently, you could divide internet users into just two categories: bots and people. Websites have long allowed bots to perform automated tasks, like capturing the content of web pages, but rules…