Mar 7, 2025 · 41m · a16z
Agent Experience: Building an Open Web for the AI Era
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the a16z podcast, Netlify CEO Matt Biilmann joins Martin Casado to discuss the emergence of Agent Experience (AX) as a defining shift in web development. They explore how AI agents are transforming code generation, infrastructure requirements, and the future of an open, intent-driven web.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 5.2 Guest teaching 3.3 Guest disagreement 1.3 The host pushing back 2.3
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 15:30 Questioning Necessity of New Web Layer
Casado offers the episode's strongest premise challenge by asking why web standards must evolve for AX when LLMs can already process existing web data and APIs.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 32:27 Pushing on Infrastructure Primitives vs Consumption LayerCasado refuses to accept AX as an abstract concept, pushing Biilmann to clarify whether AX requires genuine infrastructure primitive changes or just modified packaging.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 24:44 LLM Context Preferences Over Human DXBiilmann educates Casado on how AI coding agents favor explicit structures like Relay over popular human DX abstractions like React hooks.
The host holds their own ▶ 35:01 Connecting Linux Namespaces to DX Primitive HistoryCasado demonstrates deep infrastructure domain knowledge by pointing out that low-level Linux kernel primitives existed long before developer experience tools like Docker packaged them.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Evolution of Web Architecture and Jamstack | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Host Martin Casado adds context from his perspective as an investor, noting how Jamstack architectures shifted from radical ideas to the default standard. Matt Biilmann explains the historical context of decoupling frontend heads from monolithic backends. The tone is entirely collaborative. | |
| Betting on Developer Experience (DX) and the Open Web | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Casado synthesizes Biilmann's AI acceleration thesis into economic terms, noting that the marginal cost of code and content creation is converging on zero. Biilmann agrees, expanding on how developer experience drives platform shifts. | |
| UI 2.0 and the Future of Immersive Web Media | 6 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Casado cites real-world examples like Claude and Midjourney, and pushes Biilmann to clarify whether UI 2.0 implies a 3D metaverse rendering layer. Biilmann acknowledges the possibility, pointing out that AI drastically lowers 3D asset generation costs. | |
| Defining Agent Experience (AX) vs. Closed Walled Gardens | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Biilmann introduces Agent Experience (AX) by comparing it to Don Norman's UX and Netlify's focus on DX, contrasting open user agents with Flash walled gardens. Casado chimes in to validate the Flash analogy. | |
| Human-AI Creativity and Intent-Driven Interfaces | 6 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Casado challenges the premise of AX, asking why a new web layer is required if AI agents can already navigate existing APIs and human interfaces. Biilmann responds by arguing that relying solely on agents reading human UIs strips out human creativity and risks building new walled gardens. | |
| Deploying AI Agents in Practice on Netlify | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Biilmann shares telemetry data showing Netlify sees 10,000 sites generated per day by AI tools like Bolt.new. Casado adds his own experience using Cursor to learn JavaScript and TypeScript. | |
| Adapting Codebases and Frameworks for LLM Readability | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Biilmann explains how teams like Bricks refactored code bases to Relay and single-file components because LLMs parse them better than React hooks. Casado explores the implications for API semantics and context windows. | |
| AX as a Discipline and New Infrastructure Primitives | 7 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Casado presses Biilmann on whether AX demands brand-new infrastructure primitives or simply redefined consumption layers. Casado illustrates host expertise by comparing the shift to how Linux kernel primitives preceded Docker and Kubernetes. | |
| Vision for the Future Open Web Ecosystem | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Biilmann outlines a future with 100 million new web developers working alongside agents on an open web. Casado prompts for examples of creative AI projects, ending on a friendly note. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Casado: Most startups today build natively in JavaScript or TypeScript
“I will tell you now as an investor, if a company comes in the door and they're building a product, it's almost certainly going to be, you know, built natively for the web using JavaScript and TypeScript. And like the majority of functionality is like some thir…”
Biilmann: AI's primary predictable impact on web development is acceleration
“And probably the first one that's really easy to predict is just acceleration. We will have more code written faster, more assets, more content.”
Casado: The marginal cost of creating code and content approaches zero
“Yeah, so the, like the cost of creation, whether it's code or content is converging on zero.”
Biilmann: First-wave AI web tools lower entry barriers for traditional apps
“And then at first we use that to essentially build exactly the same That we've built the last 10 years. So we use that to build more of the same kind of web experiences, websites, web apps that we've built in the last 10 years. It just lowers the barrier of en…”
Casado: Leading AI consumer products launch web-first before releasing APIs
“Anecdotally, other than like, say, maybe like mid-journey and Discord, all of these are web technologies, like ChatGPT, Ideogram, like all of them, Claude, I mean, it seems like that the first place that they land is a website, and then maybe an API, which you…”
Biilmann: Small teams will build immersive 3D web experiences within years
“I think now we can see, now I can start seeing how you could build that, right? Like, which I couldn't really like, again, two years ago, it would just be too expensive for a normal company to build anything with like real free assets and stuff like that, righ…”
Biilmann: Netlify is centering product efforts on Agent Experience (AX)
“I wrote an article about that and have sort of centered a lot of Netlify's efforts around how do we build the best AX.”
Biilmann: AI agents are multiplying web development output
“Now we're starting to see agents play a major role in building the web, writing a lot of the code, coming up with this, it's doing all of that, collaborating with humans, but multiplying this factor of what you can build.”
Biilmann: AX will unlock highly creative, agent-flexible web experiences
“If we can build the right agent experience around the web, that will make it possible again to build really wild and creative experiences, but still allow any person interacting with them that also have agents helping them to interact in whatever way they want…”
Biilmann: AI eliminates the constraint of purely transactional user interfaces
“All of our user interfaces so far have been truly transactional interfaces, right? Like I click a button, the computer does something transactional and deterministic. That constraint has basically gone away.”
Biilmann: Bolt.new set a new standard for prompt-based AI code generation
“Latest, like there's been different ones of them, but by far the most impactful have been Bolt. News that sort of really exploded into the market at the end of last quarter, and we would say set a new standard for how far you can go with like a prompt based ag…”
Biilmann: Netlify sees 10,000 AI-generated websites created every day
“And by now at Netlify, we're seeing about 10,000 sites a day created from AI code generator.”
Biilmann: Bricks replaced React hooks with Relay to improve LLM readability
“They moved away from using hooks, for example, because they said like hooks is a great abstraction, but it hides the complexity. And we found that if we use relay in like single page component files, it becomes much easier for the LLM.”
Biilmann: AI agents excel at Relay despite high human developer barriers
“Where the developer experience means that it's just, that's never going to happen, right? Like normal teams are never going to adopt it. But it's one of these interesting examples for me of the shift from developer experience to agent experience. It suddenly, …”
Biilmann: Agent Experience (AX) must become a formal discipline like UX
“So I mean, I think I'm kind of proposing AX as a discipline in the similar way as DX or UX as a discipline, right? Like once it starts being an intentional focus of yours and you start really observing how the humans and the agent work together with your produ…”
Biilmann: Headless browsers won't remain web agent standards long-term
“For the web, there are questions of, like, how can we simplify The way agents get, like interact with the web, where right now the state of the art is kind of like a headless browser and taking screenshots and having a multimodal LLM take action and that, righ…”
Biilmann: AI-driven ephemeral apps make scale-to-zero serverless databases essential
“Maybe if you had asked me two years ago about serverless databases, right? Like, I would tell you that, like, I don't really think, like, I've looked a lot at it, and I think it's like, kind of like, Scale to zero for a database just doesn't matter that much. …”
Biilmann: 100 million new AI-assisted developers will emerge within five years
“In five years, if this goes as I think we have, like, another hundred million new developers that are primarily working, like, the deepest of them will go several layers down the stack and we'll know everything behind it, and the shallow stuff then will primar…”
Biilmann: Custom internal apps will surpass off-the-shelf SaaS as costs drop
“We'll see the cost of building internal applications and applications in general go to almost zero, right? Like, so there will be tons of those and Lots more internal applications than off-the-shelf SaaS products, right?”
Casado: AI prompting requires domain vision and skill, not just access
“One thing you definitely learn is that there is a skill to prompting like it, like this idea that like it allows everybody to be like creative is like not quite right. It just turns out that like some people know what they want and they have vision and they ac…”