Google's CEO expects AI agents to reach websites by browsing pages and through protocols, and says protocols scale better but will take longer to develop.
The head of Google, Sundar Pichai, stated that he expects there to be two methods in how AI agents access website content; the first is through a method similar to how humans browse the Internet and the second through protocols specifically created for use by agents. Pichai believes both browsing and using protocols are going to grow, however he also feels that protocols will ultimately scale much better than browser-based methods but take longer to develop.
The above comments were made by Pichai during an interview he gave to Alex Heath of the Sources podcast. Google has been backing a protocol to enable agents to shop online called the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Additionally, Google lists Google-Agent as the user agent it uses when hosted agents browse the web.
After making the above statements, Pichai discussed how he expects agents to allow users to have one unified experience across Search and Gemini. Roger Montti covered this portion of their conversation.
Alex Heath wondered whether the web needs to evolve for AI agents that use browsers much like people do to get things done, noting that the current setup can feel “like trying to fit a triangle into a square.”
“When we say agents working at scale, that means many, many different parts of the economy interoperating with each other in some way, in a way that has to make sense for all the players involved.”
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