Interesting post from Matt Biilman.

...the largest disruption from the current evolution of AI will come from bringing agency to computers.

Computers will perceive their environment and take actions autonomously in order to achieve goals.

Companies discovered that improving the DX of their products would empower and incentivize developers to extend their product with new capabilities and lead to huge competitive advantages. For developer tool companies, DX became a key competitive differentiator.

We need to start focusing on AX or “agent experience” — the holistic experience AI agents will have as the user of a product or platform.

Too many companies are focusing on adding shallow AI features all over their products or building yet another AI agent. The real breakthrough will be thinking about how your customers’ favorite agents can help them derive more value from your product. This requires thinking deeply about agents as a persona your team is building and developing for.

As AI agents start becoming useful and commonplace, we’re broadly going to see two approaches enabling agents to interact with the software we depend on:

A closed vertical approach, where companies tightly integrate their own agents into their own software. An open approach, where companies focus on making their software accessible to external agents.

Leaning into AX as a strategy, means embracing a vision of an open agent world. This vision aligns with the original ethos of the open web: a place where many diverse competing agents (built by different people or companies) can seamlessly interact with software on behalf of their users. Prioritizing AX makes it as simple as possible for any agent a user prefers, to deliver outcomes on their behalf.

Software designed for AI agents has the potential to deliver exponential value. As an industry we must collectively focus on building an open agent ecosystem and designing thoughtful AX to create a better, more open, and connected digital world.