Lately, I’ve been diving deep into Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and I have to admit—it’s been a wild ride for my imagination. These technologies are not just incremental improvements; they hint at a fundamental shift in how we interact with the web.
Making predictions about the future is always risky (and often wrong), but it’s also a lot of fun. So here are a few bold bets I’m making about how the Agentic Web might reshape everything we know about the internet.
1. APIs Will Eclipse Websites
Remember when smartphones took over and suddenly having a mobile-first website became more important than a desktop-friendly one? We’re about to see a similar shift—but this time, it’s APIs over websites.
In the Agentic Web, the primary consumers of content and services won’t be humans—they’ll be AI agents. These agents don’t need pretty UIs or responsive layouts. They need structured, machine-readable data. They thrive on APIs.
If your business doesn’t have an API, it might as well not exist in this new ecosystem. Just like mobile-first was a survival strategy, API-first will be the new baseline.
As APIs become the primary interface for AI agents, the importance of traditional frontend development will diminish significantly. If the majority of users are no longer human, then the need for beautifully crafted UIs, pixel-perfect layouts, and responsive design will shrink.
2. The Ad-Driven Web Will Take a Hit
The current web economy is built on eyeballs—clicks, impressions, and engagement. But what happens when the "user" is no longer a human with eyes, but an AI with no interest in banner ads?
Imagine a world where we interact with computers primarily through voice and hearing, not screens. Think Meta Ray-Bans, Neuralink, or whatever comes next. In this world, you won’t “Google” a hotel—you’ll ask your AI assistant, which will query an MCP search engine that indexes other MCP servers.
And here’s the kicker: being second means getting zero traffic. There’s no scroll, no page two. Just one answer. And if you say, “Don’t tell me about ads,” your AI will comply. The ad model as we know it? It’s on borrowed time.
3. Zero-Code Integration Will Be the Norm
Another wild idea: every piece of software will soon be integrated with every other piece of software—without human intervention.
If every business exposes APIs, then all you need is a translation layer. And guess what? That translation layer won’t be a custom software project. It’ll be an LLM.
You’ll describe what you want in natural language, and the model will handle the rest. No code. No middleware. Just seamless, intelligent integration. Integration will become a thing of the past—because it will be automatic.
4. Vive Coding is Real
Every major leap in software development has come from raising the level of abstraction. From machine code to assembly, from assembly to high-level languages. Each step made programming more accessible—and each was met with resistance.
Now we’re on the cusp of the next leap: from high-level programming to natural language.
Today, you might only trust an LLM to write 25% of your code. But soon, that number will climb to 95%. At that point, you’ll trust it more than some of your teammates. And this won’t be the final step. Right now, LLMs work best when you speak in imperative terms. The next generation will understand declarative intent—what you want, not how to do it.
The promise of the citizen developer will finally be fulfilled. It’s not a fad. It’s just a matter of time.
5. Machine-to-Machine Payments Will Become Essential
In a world where AI agents interact, negotiate, and transact on our behalf, we’ll need a system that allows agents to pay other agents—autonomously and securely. This means machine-to-machine (M2M) payments will become a foundational layer of the Agentic Web.
Imagine an AI booking a hotel, ordering cloud compute, or subscribing to a data feed—all without human intervention. For this to work, we need a trustless, programmable payment infrastructure. Could blockchain or decentralized finance (DeFi) play a key role here? Possibly. Smart contracts, digital wallets, and tokenized assets could provide the transparency, automation, and security needed for agents to transact freely.
But just like it took years to convince people to use credit cards online—due to a massive lack of trust—we’re likely to face a similar challenge here. That early skepticism led to the creation of trusted intermediaries like PayPal, which helped bridge the gap. The same will happen again: new security models, protocols, and trust frameworks will need to emerge to make autonomous payments feel safe and reliable.
Final Thoughts
The Agentic Web is coming—and it’s going to be weird, wonderful, and wildly different from what we know today. MCP and RAG are just the beginning. We’re heading toward a world where machines talk to machines, and humans just set the intent.
It’s a thrilling time to be in tech. Let’s build the future—one API, one prompt, one wild idea at a time.
Note: AI Edited by GPT-4.