Stratechery: Agents are the ultimate Aggregators and apps were just the means
teropa · x · 2026-09-29
Ben Thompson's Stratechery essay "Apps, Agents, and Aggregation" argues agents are the ultimate Aggregators: nobody wanted apps for their own sake—apps were merely vehicles to get jobs done, and once users can go straight to the outcome, pre-built app UI will look odd. Echoing Steve Jobs' "Are you getting it?", he lays out three claims already true in 2026: chatbots/natural language is how we'll communicate with AI; we won't program or even use computers—AI will; "write once, run everywhere" UI is dead. Providing agents is tech's biggest prize.
Related event: Ben Thompson: Agents Are the Ultimate Aggregators, Apps Are Just a Means(2 posts)→
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