AI agents are everywhere right now.
They reason better, plan longer, and chain tools more intelligently than ever.
But once you try to actually build or operate one,
a familiar pattern shows up.
Agents still fail at basic things:
- logging into real websites
- navigating dynamic UIs
- surviving API rate limits
- adapting to policy or access changes
At that point, it stops feeling like a model problem.
Smarter agents, same constraints
Most AI agents today can only act through single-platform APIs.
APIs are convenient and predictable; but they come with a hard limit.
An agent can only act where it’s allowed to act.
If an endpoint changes or access is revoked, the agent doesn’t adapt. It just stops.
That’s not autonomy.
It’s permission-based automation.
I see individual builders are now product owners.
At the same time, the way software is built has changed.
More developers are becoming product owners by default:
- solo builders
- small teams
- side projects turning into real products
One person builds the agent, deploys it, and operates it.
In that setup, platform dependency isn’t just technical,
it’s existential.
A single API change can break the entire product.
Humans don’t need APIs to use the web
Humans use the web through browsers:
- we see pages
- click, scroll, type
- and adapt when things change
Agents, meanwhile, are restricted to fixed interfaces
that humans don’t even use themselves.
If agents are meant to work for us,
why are they confined to such narrow environments?
Maybe the bottleneck isn’t intelligence
Most discussions focus on better models: reasoning, memory, planning.
But in practice, the bigger limitation often looks simpler:
Agents don’t have a free environment to act in.
Some teams are exploring this from an infrastructure-first angle.
Instead of adding more APIs,
they’re asking whether agents should be able to interact with the web itself:
through real browsers,
without being locked into a single platform.
It’s harder and less convenient ; but it may be necessary for real autonomy.
Open questions
This still feels unresolved.
Where do your AI agents fail most often?
Does it feel like a model limitation or an environment one?
Is today’s API-centric approach sustainable for solo builders?
I’d love to hear how others see this. Please share your thoughts!!
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