AI Agents Will Outnumber Humans on the Internet by 2035—Big Tech Is Terrified

TL;DR:

• Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson predicts AI agents will dominate internet searches, commerce, and activity by 2035
• Google, Amazon, and Facebook are investing heavily because their advertising-driven business models face disruption from agents that don’t click ads
• Crypto stands to benefit as AI agents increasingly handle due diligence, transaction execution, and DeFi interactions

AI agents will become more relevant than humans on the internet within the next decade, a shift already forcing Google, Facebook, and Amazon to react, said Charles Hoskinson.

In his keynote at Consensus Miami 2026 on Wednesday, Hoskinson said that by 2035, the majority of searches, commerce, and activity on the internet will be AI agents instead of people.

“Amazon, Google, Facebook, they’re terrified of the agentic revolution,” Hoskinson said, adding that companies are investing heavily because “all of their business models are going to be disrupted.”

The threat is straightforward: AI agents do not click ads or have brand preferences, which undermines the advertising-driven models that power platforms like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Google is already testing an AI agent called “Remy” that can integrate with its other services and potentially rewrite ad platforms in real time, per MediaPost.

The Crypto Connection

Hoskinson noted this shift will change how crypto is used, adding that artificial intelligence will increasingly handle tasks such as due diligence, transaction execution, and interaction with decentralized finance.

His forecast echoes that of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who said “very soon there are going to be more AI agents than humans making transactions,” and Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao, who predicted they “will make one million times more payments than humans,” per CoinDesk.

Coinbase is already adapting to this reality. The company announced this week that it’s cutting 14% of its workforce and eliminating “pure managers” as it shifts toward an AI-driven operating model where teams will be smaller—in some cases, just one person and their AI agents, per Business Insider.

The Self-Custody Imperative

The Cardano founder warned crypto users against relying on intermediaries rather than maintaining direct control of their assets, which is the principle crypto was built on.

“You have to own your data. You have to own your identity. You have to own your money,” Hoskinson said, adding that users are “outsourcing that to custodial wallets,” “permissioned networks,” and “third parties that they come to regret trusting when they get their account shut down.”

He also pointed to fragmentation across blockchain ecosystems as a barrier to progress, saying it has slowed down development. “There’s been 11 million tokens issued over the years. We have enough of them,” Hoskinson said. “What I want is cooperation. What I want is the mission to be achieved.”

User experience remains a key issue limiting adoption, said Hoskinson, who described the current crypto onboarding processes as complex and prone to error. “That is the user experience in 2026,” he said. “Is this like a product you want to use?”

He said technologies such as account abstraction and chain abstraction could simplify how users interact with crypto systems while maintaining control over assets and identity.

Hoskinson highlighted changing attitudes among financial institutions, noting that JPMorgan has moved from restricting crypto-related activity to developing blockchain-based products. “Back when we started JPMorgan was turning people’s bank accounts off and now they have a blockchain product,” he said.

Consensus Miami 2026 runs through Friday.