AI browsing the web is dumb AF if you think about it. Using an API through a REPL is so much better, we're doing all this work to basically work around jackass site operators who make everything require javascript and don't provide a documented user facing API.
The irony is that as the agentic boom really takes off, all these no-api, no accessibility sites are going to lose to small competitors who just offer a reliable agent interface, so people can use their service without having to use their service. Good riddance to the dinosaurs.
Obviously an API is better but realistically we aren't going to convince every web service to offer an API overnight and people want to be able to e.g. make reservations through chatgpt today.
Yep, the only way to convince companies to offer an API is to implement an agent that slowly but surely works around whatever trainwreck of a web experience they put in its way and then give them an option to make it smoother by offering an AI.
See: mobile websites. They sucked so badly that "desktop internet, not mobile internet" was a big selling point of the original iPhone. Then, once mobile had enough market share to "set the terms," we went back to having special mobile versions (or even mobile-first), but this time it didn't suck. Part of that was tech, but most of it was mobile acquiring a critical mass of marketshare, and the winner of the mobile wars won using an all-important temporary workaround stepping stone that solved the chicken-egg problem.
The irony is that as the agentic boom really takes off, all these no-api, no accessibility sites are going to lose to small competitors who just offer a reliable agent interface, so people can use their service without having to use their service. Good riddance to the dinosaurs.