Why Do AI Agents Use Web Browsers?

Sundar Pichai says agents will keep using browsers and computers because a person would do the same thing, and because that makes it easier to keep the user in the loop. Agent protocols will develop at the same time.

Alex Heath asked whether the web needs to change so agents can finish tasks, and whether Google is in a position to do something bigger. Sundar Pichai calls the moment complex. Agents working at scale means many parts of the economy have to interoperate in a way that makes sense for all the players. He says the technology frontier will be ahead of the ecosystem. Momentum is already behind MCP, other agent protocols, and payment protocols like UCP, which Google did with a set of companies. He expects a chaotic evolution toward more interoperable standards, and he calls the protocol path elegant.

Browser use and computer use are elegant too. Sundar Pichai says both ways are going to develop.