Key Takeaways
- • Andreessen Horowitz argues AI agents have become the primary users of the Internet, now making up the majority of web traffic, writing more than half of new online articles, and generating most code pushed to production.
- • Shopify reported AI-driven traffic to its stores grew eightfold year over year in Q1 2026, while orders from AI-powered searches grew nearly thirteenfold.
- • Human Security saw agentic browser traffic grow 8x between August and October, with Muse accounting for 60% of activity and OpenAI products reaching a combined 30%.
- • As of September 2026, upwards of 40% of GitHub pull requests started with an agent's draft, up from 17% six months earlier.
- • The firm identifies four categories poised to benefit from the 'B2A (business-to-agent) economy': agents and agentic models, agent-enabled products, incumbents optimizing for agents, and agent infrastructure in payments, fraud, identity, and communication.
Summary
Andreessen Horowitz published a piece titled "Welcome to the B2A Economy," arguing that the primary users of the Internet are no longer humans but AI agents. The firm states that agents now make up the majority of web traffic, write more than half of new articles published online, and generate most of the code pushed to production. It characterizes the current period as the early stage of a platform shift in which adoption is measurable but the business models it enables are not yet visible.
The firm contends that agents will increasingly decide which products to use, which services to subscribe to, and where to spend money on users' behalf as they move from answering questions to completing tasks. It argues that businesses treating agents as first-class customers have an opportunity for growth, while those that continue to block bots may come under threat. According to the article, Shopify reported AI-driven traffic to its stores grew eightfold year over year in Q1 2026, and orders from AI-powered searches grew nearly thirteenfold. Human Security saw agentic browser traffic grow 8x between August and October, with Muse driving 60% of activity and OpenAI products reaching a combined 30%. The article also cites an estimated 11% of U.S. shopper journeys visiting AI before a transactional site, and says AI-referred traffic shows higher engagement and better conversion with a lower bounce rate than non-AI traffic.
The article notes that most agent traffic currently occurs through browser use, while connectors, plug-ins, and MCPs are emerging as an equivalent of an app store for agents. It cites OpenAI's launch of Businesses in ChatGPT, which lets companies claim their business, add product feeds, and view insights on user interactions, and says Claude already allows enterprise admins to connect plugins across an organization. ChatGPT, with 1.2 billion weekly active users, is highlighted as a particularly significant opportunity.
Using coding agents as a case study, the article reports that Supabase said in June 2026 that more than 60% of new databases were launched by AI tools, Stripe said in June 2026 that agents accounted for nearly 40% of documentation traffic and 70% of CLI requests, and Vercel said in October 2026 that agent-triggered deployments rose 28x over twelve months. The piece frames this as the first in a series exploring the agent economy, with forthcoming data on consumer agent usage, agent site selection, infrastructure development, and remaining barriers to completing transactions. The article notes that most enterprises still block agent traffic over fraud and chargeback concerns.
The firm contends that agents will increasingly decide which products to use, which services to subscribe to, and where to spend money on users' behalf as they move from answering questions to completing tasks. It argues that businesses treating agents as first-class customers have an opportunity for growth, while those that continue to block bots may come under threat. According to the article, Shopify reported AI-driven traffic to its stores grew eightfold year over year in Q1 2026, and orders from AI-powered searches grew nearly thirteenfold. Human Security saw agentic browser traffic grow 8x between August and October, with Muse driving 60% of activity and OpenAI products reaching a combined 30%. The article also cites an estimated 11% of U.S. shopper journeys visiting AI before a transactional site, and says AI-referred traffic shows higher engagement and better conversion with a lower bounce rate than non-AI traffic.
The article notes that most agent traffic currently occurs through browser use, while connectors, plug-ins, and MCPs are emerging as an equivalent of an app store for agents. It cites OpenAI's launch of Businesses in ChatGPT, which lets companies claim their business, add product feeds, and view insights on user interactions, and says Claude already allows enterprise admins to connect plugins across an organization. ChatGPT, with 1.2 billion weekly active users, is highlighted as a particularly significant opportunity.
Using coding agents as a case study, the article reports that Supabase said in June 2026 that more than 60% of new databases were launched by AI tools, Stripe said in June 2026 that agents accounted for nearly 40% of documentation traffic and 70% of CLI requests, and Vercel said in October 2026 that agent-triggered deployments rose 28x over twelve months. The piece frames this as the first in a series exploring the agent economy, with forthcoming data on consumer agent usage, agent site selection, infrastructure development, and remaining barriers to completing transactions. The article notes that most enterprises still block agent traffic over fraud and chargeback concerns.
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