The idea of “search” as we know it is dying, and it won’t be a quiet funeral.
I recently spoke with VentureBeat about the next frontier of online discovery. What’s coming is a new operating system for how humans interact with the internet.
Like I said in the article, Google was built to index and rank. OpenAI is engineered to understand, synthesize, and serve intent-based outcomes.
Here’s what that means and how brands need to prepare.
From Finding to Fulfilling
Today’s AI browsers aren’t giving you a list of links. They’re completing the task – booking the flight, ordering the groceries, pulling quotes, and managing workflows.
OpenAI is comprehending the web, and they’re not alone.
Amazon recently revealed to The Verge that its AGI team is now focused on building intelligent agents designed to operate like autonomous employees: navigating websites, performing tasks, and making decisions on a user’s behalf. According to David Luan, head of Amazon’s AGI efforts, these agents are the new operating system for how we interact with the web
This shift turns the entire user experience from passive to active, from lookup to action. That’s not just a user interface change. It’s a new mental model.
We’re Entering the Agentic Web
Traditional SEO won’t die overnight, but its relevance is fading. The question is no longer “how do I rank?” but “how do I get cited, understood, and acted upon by AI?”
The research firm Gartner predicts that by 2028, 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI, and 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI.
If you’re still building digital strategy around blue links and keyword density, you’re already behind.
The future belongs to brands that do three things:
- Structure content for AI comprehension
- Invest in brand trust and authority
- Build interfaces that support machine-to-machine interaction
Enterprises should stop thinking in blue links and start building content that answers, reasons, and resonates.
What This Means for Influence
We’ve long said that we are the agency for influence.
With the shift to AI-native everything, influence looks different. It’s about being understood by both humans and machines. The real winners will be those who can optimize their messaging for intent-driven environments where AI agents are gatekeepers.
This is where we operate.
We’ve already begun adapting client strategies around schema, embeddings, FAQs, and structured data that large language models can parse and trust. We’re helping clients get selected, cited, and surfaced by the next generation of AI agents.
This evolution is already underway at the enterprise level. According to The Wall Street Journal, Johnson & Johnson is now using autonomous AI agents in drug discovery to help scientists determine the optimal moment to perform complex tasks like solvent switching, a crucial step in crystallizing molecules for new drugs. These agents, integrated with machine learning and digital twins, are accelerating decision-making that used to require multiple manual iterations
A Final Thought: The Internet Is No Longer a Library
It’s a command center.
The browser you knew, that giant library of links and tabs, is being replaced by intelligent systems that know your goals and act on your behalf.
If you want your brand to thrive in that world, you have to be actionable.
At Avenue Z, we’re helping clients do just that, across every channel, platform, and agent that matters.
Let’s build for what’s next. Talk to our team.
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