AI agents solve a 1% problem
Search, smartphones and social media have become an integral part of daily life for billions of people, and AI agents which act on our behalf are currently intended for the small number of people who have more tasks than time. According to the evidence, this situation will continue to persist.
Questions it answers
- What caused search, mobile, and social networks to become a part of everyday life?
- What is it about so few people that makes them want an AI to act on their behalf?
- Who actually benefits from consumer AI agents?
- What kind of measures would be needed in order for agents to reach every individual?
Search, smartphones and social networks have become an integral part of daily life since they satisfy a need that people have on a frequent basis and can be tried without any cost. AI agents which shop, book and pay on our behalf fail to meet these criteria: their tasks are infrequent, they require our money and logins, and all surveys concerning users' willingness to hand them control result in single digits. AI agents will be useful only to a small number of busy and well-connected people; for nearly everybody else they will appear, if at all, as a feature within the apps that they already use.