Understanding the Agentic Web: How AI Agents Are Creating a New Layer of the Internet
By
Slobodan Manic
Front-window bakery material. Catches the eye, delivers the goods.
Summary
The article explains the concept of the "agentic web" — a new layer of the internet where AI agents, acting autonomously on behalf of humans, discover, read, and transact with websites. It distinguishes agents as a fourth class of website visitor (alongside humans, search engine crawlers, and scripts), describes how agents perform multi-step tasks like checking availability, comparing prices, and completing purchases, and discusses why this emerging layer matters for the future of the web.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledThe agentic web is the layer of the internet where AI agents, acting on behalf of humans, discover, read, and transact with websites.
For most of the internet's history, three classes of visitor showed up at a website: humans, search engine crawlers, and robots running scripts. Agents are a fourth class.
An agent is sent by a human with a task, runs autonomously on the user's behalf, and performs multi-step actions.
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alibaba.github.io·3mo ago