From Eyeballs to Tokens: The Agentification Transformation That the Web Is Undergoing

Core Viewpoint: Internet architecture is undergoing a transformation from a model oriented toward human visual browsing to tokenized, structured data formats that support autonomous interaction by AI agents. This change involves technologies such as the MCP protocol, API-first approach, and structured data, and will have a profound impact on developers and users.

Traditional web design is centered on human vision, using HTML/CSS/JS to build visually friendly interfaces. However, AI agents cannot parse complex DOM structures or dynamic content, leading to low interaction efficiency. Since 2023, agents driven by large language models have entered the digital world on a large scale, spurring demand for an 'agentified web'.

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) launched by Anthropic is a standardized interface that allows agents to interact uniformly with external data sources/tools. For example, when booking a flight, an agent can directly query flights and complete payments via MCP endpoints without parsing the website UI. Benefits include reducing integration costs, lightening the burden on developers, and promoting the formation of an 'agent economy'.

In the agent era, API-first is no longer 'API first, then UI'; it may retain only APIs as the sole interface. Enterprises need to redesign their architectures: Shopify's Storefront API and Stripe's payment API have evolved to be agent-friendly, with built-in features like context management, marking a strategic shift from 'human-centric' to 'agent-centric'.

Structured data technologies like Schema.org and JSON-LD are core to the agentified web. For example, recipe websites use Schema.org/Recipe to mark ingredients and steps, allowing agents to instantly extract key content without dealing with noise like ads. Standards like Web App Manifest also enhance agents' programmatic interaction capabilities.

The agentified web faces multiple challenges: 1. Accessibility: Services relying on APIs may marginalize traditional browser users (especially disabled users); 2. Trust and Security: Mechanisms for authorization and abuse prevention of agent operations need to be improved; 3. Economic Model: Brand loyalty may collapse, and enterprises need to rely on function/price differentiation; 4. Technical Fragmentation: Lack of unified standards may trigger 'protocol wars'.

The agentified web is the evolution of the web from a 'human consumption medium' to a 'machine collaboration platform'. Developers need to review their product architectures (structured data, API completeness, etc.), and users will enjoy a more efficient digital life (e.g., smart assistants automatically planning trips). The transformation has begun; we need to prepare to embrace the tokenized new world.