Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch believes the future of software is shifting away from human users and toward artificial intelligence agents. Speaking on Sequoia Capital’s podcast, Rauch said, “Your customer is no longer the developer. Your customer is the agent that the developer or non-developer is wielding.” The web infrastructure company, valued at $3.25 billion in 2024 and backed by Accel, Tiger Global, and GV, raised $250 million in its Series E round last year. Rauch explained that code is no longer being written only for humans to read or use but is increasingly designed for AI systems to understand, apply, and extend. He added, “That is actually a pretty significant change,” noting that future APIs, runtimes, and frameworks may need to adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of large language models.
Rauch also emphasized that newer users, from designers to marketers and AI agents, expect systems to perform flawlessly. “You want something that works 99.99% of the time,” he said, describing the heightened expectations as a productive pressure on product builders. The comments come during what analysts describe as the “Agentic AI era,” where AI assistants could replace direct interaction with websites and apps. While researchers warn that agent errors can accumulate rapidly, startups like Patronus AI suggest that filters and guardrails can reduce these risks significantly, paving the way for wider adoption of AI-driven software interaction. This shift presents entrepreneurs with both possibilities and demands, pushing them to design software that remains reliable while aligning with AI-driven use cases.
