What If the Website Stops Being the Front Door of E-Commerce?
What If the Website Stops Being the Front Door of E-Commerce? I've been thinking about something lately. I don't know if it will happen this way. I don't know when it might happen. And I may be completely wrong about some of it. But I've started to wonder whether we are approaching a rather fundamental change in the way companies expose themselves to the outside world. Maybe, in a few years, an…
In recent years, the nature of e-commerce has been undergoing a significant transformation, with the possibility of a major shift on the horizon. The conventional model sees human customers interacting with websites or mobile applications, which in turn communicate with enterprise systems through APIs. However, the future may involve a different approach, where a company's agent, rather than a website or app, represents the business to the outside world.
This agent could possess comprehensive knowledge about the company's products, delivery options, promotions, return policies, negotiation limits, and more.
In this scenario, the user interface would become less fixed and more context-specific. The same underlying agent could generate various interfaces, such as web UI, mobile UI, voice interaction, smart-glasses interface, or even a human-readable proposal, depending on the user's needs at any given moment. This approach suggests that the underlying agent could remain stable, while the UI adapts to the context of the interaction.
While the idea of AI agents acting on behalf of companies presents numerous possibilities, it also raises significant concerns. For instance, how can we ensure that an AI agent, tasked with negotiating prices or delivery times, is trustworthy and authorized to act in accordance with the company's policies? This question touches upon the concept of a "trust gateway" – a system that separates the decision-making process (semantic plane) from the execution of decisions (control plane).
The former allows agents to negotiate and reason about alternatives, while the latter enforces control over who the agent represents, what it is authorized to do, and under what conditions.
To address these challenges, I have been exploring a small open-source project called Trust Gateway. The core idea is to create a system where autonomous agents can negotiate and propose terms while maintaining a clear boundary between the decision-making process and the executive authority. This approach would allow for more flexible and adaptable agent interactions, while ensuring that the execution of decisions remains within a well-defined, deterministic framework.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
