The world of digital interactions is undergoing a radical shift. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the increasing sophistication of large language models (LLMs), we are moving beyond traditional user experiences. The new frontier is Agent Experience (AX)—the holistic design of software, platforms, and tools to optimize interactions for AI agents. But what exactly is AX, how does it differ from UX and DX, and why does it matter now more than ever?
What is AX?
AX, or Agent Experience, refers to the design and optimization of digital environments so that AI agents can efficiently and effectively operate within them. These agents are no longer just executing predefined tasks but are increasingly autonomous, perceiving their environments, making decisions, and initiating actions on behalf of users.
Just as User Experience (UX) focuses on human interactions with a product and Developer Experience (DX) optimizes the experience of building on a platform, AX is about ensuring that AI agents can seamlessly interact with and extend digital products. This includes providing well-structured APIs, machine-readable documentation, and clear operational contexts for AI systems.
How AX relates to UX and DX
Given that agents are delegated by users to do tasks, they are now under the umbrella of considerations for UX and DX. They are different areas of focus but come together to form the complete picture of the user experience.
- UX (User Experience): Optimizes interactions between humans and digital products, ensuring usability, accessibility, and satisfaction - the total view of the user’s experience.
- DX (Developer Experience): Focuses on making development tools intuitive and efficient, reducing friction for software engineers.
- AX (Agent Experience): Ensures that delegated AI agents can successfully navigate, interpret, and utilize digital services to effectively serve users.
Whether they are users, customers, or developers, they are interacting with these digital services and products via delegated agents. AX is about making products agent-friendly and ensuring that this medium is supported. Therefore, AX is a natural extension of UX and DX where services support users that are interacting with them via agents.
Related research on AX being an evolution in UX.
Why AX matters in the era of AI agents
In the early years of the web it became clear that, without a website, organizations were not relevant. Then came search engines and the advent of SEO. Without showing up on relevant searches, your site did not seem to exist. Now, we’re seeing AI agents become the entry point for the next generation of digital users. Providing an agent experience will determine relevancy, preference, and adoption in this era.
AX in Practice: Real-World Applications
Companies like Netlify, Clerk, Neon, Convex, and many others are already making strides in AX. For example:
- Netlify’s web platform: Netlify streamlined the deployment process for AI-driven applications. Allowing Bolt, ChatGPT (through a custom GPT), and many more to deploy web projects autonomously.
- Clerk’s AI authentication focus: Clerk is optimizing authentication flows so that AI agents can securely manage access on behalf of users.
- Neon’s AI-optimized database services: Neon is tailoring its infrastructure to be agent-friendly, ensuring AI systems can manage and query databases effectively.
- Convex AI-specific documentation to aid AI codegen: Convex has shipped tailor-made documentation for AI codegen tools along side their documentation for developers to use.