This weekend, C-suite executives and innovation leaders are digesting the twin signals sent from Microsoft Build in Seattle and Google I/O in Mountain View, where both stages unveiled the same bold future: the Open Agentic Web. Satya Nadella called it “the middle innings of another platform shift,” likening today to the dawn of Windows in 1991 and the public web in 1996 and urged developers to “build out this open agentic web at scale,” moving us from siloed apps to interconnected platforms of collaborating agents. Across the coast, Sundar Pichai echoed the theme, defining agents as “systems that combine the intelligence of advanced AI models with access to tools… able to take actions on your behalf and under your control.”
Now, just picture an internet where autonomous AI workers book meetings, analyse data and engage customers without constant human micromanagement, a mesh of interoperable software woven through every layer of technology. The vision is open, scalable, and leader-ready; those who grasp it earliest will set tomorrow’s competitive tempo. In the reflection that follows, I’ll try to unpack what the agentic web really is, show how it reshapes strategy and innovation and leave you with a Monday-ready step so your organisation isn’t left behind.
What is open agentic web?
The Open Agentic Web is best understood as the internet’s next evolutionary stage, one where we delegate digital grunt work to autonomous yet interoperable AI agents. Rather than humans (or brittle scripts) pulling data from pages, agents discover services, negotiate short-lived permissions and chain actions end-to-end without constant supervision but with complete consent. As Kevin Scott mentioned, an agent is simply “a thing that a human being is able to delegate tasks to,” and daily active usage of such agents has already more than doubled in the past year. Crucially, this surge isn’t a single-vendor land-grab; it is emerging from “components and protocols and services that we’ve all been collectively working on” across the industry. Standards like the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and new agent-to-agent (A2A) handshakes let a supply-chain agent running in one cloud collaborate securely with a logistics one in another. This enables turning openness rather than lock-in into the real growth fly-wheel. The result is a distributed, discoverable mesh of intelligence that revives the original ethos of the web while democratising access.
A startup developer can now tap world-class reasoning models, wire up open data connectors and orchestrate sophisticated workflows once reserved for tech giants. For business leaders, the competitive edge shifts from owning every component to composing and governing these agents creatively; the winners will be the organisations that harness this open ecosystem fastest not merely those that control the underlying platforms.
Paradigm shift of vision to strategy
The open agentic web calls for a wholesale reset of digital strategy. This will reward those who are most discoverable and interoperable. In this new landscape customers will hand tasks to their personal agents, “book a table of 8 for tonight’s corporate dinner” and the outlets (restaurants in this case) whose systems are easiest for that agent to query will capture the sale. Ecosystem positioning therefore beats platform control. Data silos that once felt like moats risk irrelevance if outside agents can’t reach them, so every company will need clean APIs and agent connectors that expose high-value actions (“reserve,” “refund,” “diagnose”) irrespective of vendor. Speed also becomes strategy in today’s AI models; boards must track how many days it takes to launch an agent pilot because the organisations that iterate fastest will discover tomorrow’s moats first.
Starting today, both content and intelligence can now be distributed and discoverable across the web and competitive edge will stem from being present in as many agent workflows as possible. That, in turn, demands a culture of openness. Leadership must champion open standards, partnerships, and co-innovation. They need to recognise that valuable customer journeys will be created by a network of agents working together. This will deliver speed and experiences built in conjunction with partners.
Implications for product innovation and competitive strategy
“Agentic” will soon be as common as “mobile-first.” Every product manager should consider how their portfolio can evolve from passive features to proactive AI partners. In the open agentic web, competitive differentiation moves from owning every component to orchestrating unique data, domain expertise, and branded agents within multi-agent value chains. This could be a marketing platform whose agent reallocates ad spend in real time, a healthcare system that auto-completes clinician paperwork, or a travel company whose itinerary agent is consulted by customers’ personal assistants.
Expect new strategic alliances: an insurer’s risk-mitigation agent could work with a smart-home provider’s device agent to spot water leaks before they flood a property. The winners will be those whose agents are more connected, context-aware and indispensable inside these distributed, interoperable workflows. They will outmanoeuvre closed platforms by embracing openness and accelerating iteration.
We’re already bringing agentic web to life
I’m currently helping ITKnocks, a Microsoft partner working with an Australian apparel chain through every step of a merchandising transformation powered by Azure AI Foundry SDK alongside Model Context Protocol (MCP). Together we’ve introduced ModelSense, an AI merchandising agent to slot neatly into their existing stack. Store managers now snap a quick photo of any product and within thirty seconds ModelSense proposes a fresh floor layout or promotional display that reflects real-time trends and local customer preferences. Early results have shown us productivity gains by 20 percent and slashed surplus stock. This constitutes that the right AI strategy can help retail brands solve complex merchandising challenges at startup speed.
The open agentic web is no longer a distant buzzword. Over 230,000 organisations, including 90 percent of the Fortune 500, have built agents with Copilot Studio. Millions more experiment daily with Google’s Gemini SDK. The underlying standards are open and extensible. Leaders must be visionary yet practical. An internet full of intelligent, interoperable agents will reshape products, competition, customer engagement and operations. The building blocks are ready now but risks like privacy, security and ethics must be managed from day one.
Your task is twofold. First, set a direction that embraces openness and multi-agent collaboration. Contribute to shared protocols like early web pioneers did. Second, build a muscle for rapid and well-governed experimentation.
Are you to ready to spend 90 minutes identifying one high-impact customer or internal process. Launch a pilot and measure results after a fortnight. In the age of autonomous agents, strategy will belong to organisations willing to delegate, learn and refine fastest.
Until next time.