5. The Future
Challenges vs Opportunities
What's holding agents back, and what's pulling them forward
Agents can confidently take wrong actions. Human-in-the-loop checkpoints are essential.
Agents with tool access can cause real damage. Sandboxing and permission scopes are critical.
Multi-step agent runs consume many API tokens. Optimizing reasoning loops reduces cost.
Every person will have AI agents managing email, scheduling, research, and finances.
Agents will hire other agents for specialized tasks, creating autonomous marketplaces.
AI woven into every device and service: proactively acting before you ask.
The Agentic Web holds incredible promise, but it also presents significant challenges in security, ethics, and economics. This module explores the open questions we must solve to build a safe and prosperous agentic future.
Agent Risk Matrix
Security and reliability risks in production agent deployments