(A possible) Future of the web

When computers were first created, users had to speak their language: feeding them punch cards, memorizing assembly commands, typing into terminals. Over time this shifted to more human-understandable languages: high-level programming languages such as Python and Go. Today, we communicate with computers using natural language with tools such as chatGPT and Gemini.

Web 1.0 was about reading pages that were static and one-way. Web 2.0 brought participation social media, blogs, and user-generated content turned the web into a conversation. Web 3.0 offered decentralization and internet native money (such as stablecoins).

Now, with Web 4.0, we’re seeing something new: delegation. We can now have multiple tireless AI agents that can work 24/7 and eager to do our bidding. Instead of clicking, searching, and sifting, we describe what we want, and agents do the rest.

Tell your AI agent, “Book a flight to Mombasa next weekend, window seat, afternoon flight,” and it understands. It plans and executes, just as a human assistant would. No need for drop-downs, filters, no complicated banners pestering you to accept cookies or five tabs open at once.

We’re moving toward a web where the primary interface is a conversation and chats. Instead of bookmarking websites and learning new interfaces, we’ll describe what we need and let agents handle the complexity.

Of course, this future isn’t guaranteed. The status quo doesn’t give up power easily. Browsers, platforms, and ad ecosystems will resist a world where users no longer need to see them (at least until they can get in on the action and figure out how to monetize it). Current LLMs still face a myriad of challenges including hallucinations, context rot and underdeveloped abilities.

Still I’ve set out to explore what this future could look like with Keja AI, a conversational agent that automates apartment search. It’s a small but concrete step toward a more intuitive and agent-powered web. Follow the development here.

This is a work under progress and may change any time