After 20 years of trying to kill email, agents rediscover it as universal protocol

Bozos · x · 2026-10-12

After 20 years of trying to replace email, AI agents are rediscovering it as a universal messaging protocol.
Email already offers nearly everything agents need: authentication, universal addressing, asynchronous communication, federation, attachments, routing, and global adoption.
Historical context: Ray Tomlinson picked the @ in 1971 because no login name contained it and it meant the user was "at" that machine; 55 years later the agent is the user and the cloud is the machine.