TL;DR

Cognizant research predicts AI-powered consumers could drive up to 55% of spending by 2030, worth over £690 billion in the UK alone, as autonomous agents act on users’ behalf. Businesses must shift from user experience (UX) to agent experience (AX) design, creating machine-readable environments with structured data and predictable APIs. Design principles diverge fundamentally: humans value ambiguity and exploration; agents require logic, precision, and efficiency. Traffic from autonomous agents already growing, risking marketplace invisibility for organisations ignoring these digital customers.

From Assistance to Delegation

The internet’s experiential function is broken. Users waste time navigating apps, remembering passwords, re-entering information, and hopping between tabs to complete tasks—processes feeling more draining than productive. Advances in natural language interfaces and artificial intelligence agents that query data, connect systems through APIs, and complete complex tasks are transforming online interactions, creating the “agentic internet” where autonomous agents act on behalf of people and businesses.

Until now, most AI tools helped people complete tasks efficiently. The next phase involves delegation, where agents act on users’ behalf. Instead of spending time comparing prices or filling forms, people will set preferences and let digital agents negotiate, transact, and optimise in background. This evolution frees people to focus on intent and decision-making whilst agents handle execution.

Foundation Elements and Adoption Tipping Point

Movement towards this model has built quietly for years and now accelerates. Consumers once hesitant to rely on algorithms increasingly feel comfortable letting AI take on specific tasks. Major platform providers have embedded AI into core IT infrastructure, putting powerful tools directly into users’ and developers’ hands. Enterprise APIs built over the past decade to connect systems have unintentionally laid groundwork for autonomous transactions, whilst connected devices generate constant data streams agents can act on without human involvement.

Foundations for agentic internet already exist—what’s changing is how quickly businesses must adapt. For years, businesses focused on user experience (UX), making websites and apps easy to navigate. Increasingly, they must consider agent experience (AX). As autonomous AI agents represent users, businesses need creating digital environments machines can read and understand clearly, ensuring systems are intelligible, reliable, and efficient for software intermediaries increasingly handling transactions, negotiations, and exchanges.

Design Paradigm Shift and Organisational Implications

Design principles working for people don’t work for agents. Human-centred design thrives on ambiguity, exploration, and emotional engagement. Consumers enjoy browsing, discovering products, or being influenced by storytelling—process can be as satisfying as outcome. Agents operate differently: they value logic, precision, and efficiency. When tasked with buying products, agents don’t browse—they execute clear queries using defined parameters, evaluating multiple factors simultaneously (price, delivery time, warranty, sustainability impact) in milliseconds. Success is measured by best outcome, not journey.

This difference demands new design mindsets. Whilst human interfaces can be flexible and interpretive, agent-facing systems must be structured and exact. Data needs consistency and self-explanation. APIs must behave predictably. Services should be engineered from ground up for machine understanding.

Agent experience transcends technical challenges, changing how organisations operate holistically. Product management teams will treat APIs as products in their own right, whilst data teams ensure clarity and consistency across every digital touchpoint.

Looking Forward

Some sectors are moving faster: retail and media are natural early adopters. Retailers will shift from selling individual products to fulfilling outcomes (complete wardrobes, weekly meal plans). Media and tech companies will see agents managing subscriptions, bundling services, and optimising access based on preferences. Other sectors including insurance and healthcare will move cautiously due to regulation and trust concerns, yet potential remains significant. As agents handle most digital interactions, visibility will depend on being machine-readable. Success will be measured by how often agents choose to interact with businesses or include services in transactions.

Source: TechRadar Pro