The web is becoming a sprawling hive mind of AI agents, and Vercel wants to build a cloud to host them

The landscape of the internet is evolving rapidly, with AI agents beginning to populate the online environment. Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, highlighted this transformation in a recent interview, emphasizing the shift from traditional web pages to intelligent agents. To accommodate this pivotal change, Vercel is developing an 'AI cloud'—a specialized infrastructure intended to support autonomous agents capable of independent planning, reasoning, and action. Rauch stated, "Every type of software will become AI native software, and the new primitive of the cloud will be the agent." Vercel, a company that currently powers millions of web applications, recently secured $300 million in funding, bringing its valuation to $9.3 billion. This investment will help accelerate the development of frameworks and tools designed to embrace the next generation of AI-driven software. Rauch noted that many organizations are skipping traditional digital transformation strategies and are instead jumping directly to implementing AI agents. These agents are already influencing the way online infrastructure operates, with software running for extended periods, showcasing remarkable capabilities. Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, Vercel's COO, revealed that the company is training AI agents based on the performance of its top employees. This innovation has allowed Vercel to reduce its sales development team from ten members down to just one human and an AI bot. The rise of AI agents is set to revolutionize the internet, streamlining tasks from making reservations to processing payments. As technology companies race to establish the foundational infrastructure for this new agent-driven web, significant advancements are being made. For instance, OpenAI recently launched Atlas, a browser powered by ChatGPT that combines internet browsing with the functionalities of AI agents, enabling users to perform basic tasks like scheduling appointments. In addition, Google introduced Agent2Agent, a protocol facilitating communication among AI agents for secure data sharing and action coordination. Meanwhile, Anthropic, the creator of Claude, rolled out its Model Context Protocol to connect agents with backend systems, enhancing the efficiency of online commerce. Cloudflare also announced plans to launch NET Dollar, a stablecoin aimed at supporting secure transactions within this emerging agentic web.