Microsoft sees future of the internet as AI agents crawling websites for us, tech willing
Microsoft sees artificial intelligence transforming the internet as fundamentally as mobile phones have over the past two decades. But the technology's limitations could curb its grand vision.
Generative AI – which creates content based on a user's request – burst into the zeitgeist in late 2022 when Microsoft-backed
OpenAI launched ChatGPT , a conversational chatbot that could take a simple request and generate anything from a limerick to a college essay.
Less than three years later, Microsoft has a plan to move beyond ChatGPT and its copycats by creating the foundation for a new version of the internet.
Microsoft calls it the 'open agentic web', with users sending AI-powered 'agents' out into the void to do their bidding. Casual consumers primarily interact with AI now through a Google search – one that repeatedly drums up false answers – or a ChatGPT-style chatbot that generates a conversation.
Microsoft believes AI agents are the future of the internet. Photo: Reuters
In Microsoft's eyes, chatbots are old news.
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