> The scenario imagines every consumer deciding to use their own personal agent to transact and conduct business. This completely sidelines companies that monet

> The scenario imagines every consumer deciding to use their own personal agent to transact and conduct business. This completely sidelines companies that monetise “friction” in the economy, such as travel and estate agencies that operate as middlemen in processes such as booking holidays or buying property. The threat to the middleman businesses is their elimination. For that to happen, the service providers have to open up APIs for the users' agents' to use directly, so that then those agents effectively become the middlemen. If that doesn't happen, then the user agents have to deal with the friction, and that works in favor of the middlemen because agents are willing to deal with much more friction than people. In this scenario, only the rank-and-file friction workers and their management have to worry about being replaced by friction-generating AI; the business as such is safe.