← OpenAI
Greg Isenberg
Clearest Explanation of AI Agents as Customers
⏱ 14 min video · 3 min read2 Jun 2026
TL;DR
Greg Isenberg argues that AI agents are becoming the primary customers of the internet, replacing human users as the dominant traffic source. He maps out the agent buying journey, identifies missing infrastructure, and lists startup opportunities in the emerging machine-to-machine economy.
Key points
1
AI agents are becoming the primary customers on the internet, outnumbering human users — every SaaS category (Notion, Slack, Stripe, etc.) needs to be rebuilt natively for agents
2
The agent buying journey has distinct stages: finding, evaluating, verifying trust, transacting, using tools, and recommending to other agents — each stage lacks infrastructure
3
Agents need five core primitives humans do not: identity, tool permissions, an inbox, a wallet with spend caps, and receipts/audit trails
4
Businesses must make themselves machine-readable by adding structured docs, schemas, MCP tools, SDKs, OAuth, sandbox environments, and a dedicated /agents entry point on their websites
5
SEO is shifting to AEO (Agent Engine Optimization) — if an agent cannot understand what your product does and safely act with it, your business is invisible to agent traffic
Actionable insights
→
Add a /agents page to your website with structured docs, schemas, policies, MCP tools, SDKs, OAuth, checkout flows, and sandbox access so agents can discover and act with your product
→
Replace static forms and landing pages with action endpoints and capability manifests — agents care about what they can do with your product, not brand slogans
→
Build or invest in agent-native infrastructure: agent inboxes (e.g. AgentMail, backed by YC), agent wallets (Stripe is already building this), agent analytics, agent identity/permissions, and agent audit trails
→
Optimize for AEO — structure content so AI agents cite, trust, and recommend your product when other agents or users query tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity
→
Evaluate every SaaS tool you currently use and ask: what is the agent-native version of this? That question surfaces the highest-value startup opportunities in the next 10 years
Notable quotes
“The human customer wants persuasion. But the agent customer wants structured capability, permission, and trust.”
“If an agent can not understand what you do and safely do something with you, you are basically invisible to them.”
“We are entering the machine-to-machine economy and almost nobody is building for it yet.”
Worth watching?
⏭️
Worth watching the full video?
The core framework and all startup ideas are fully captured here — skip the video unless you want to hear Greg riff on examples in his own voice.
Saved you some time? The creator still deserves a like.
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