Box CEO Aaron Levie's advice to developers? Build software that cash-holding AI agents — not humans — want to use

• Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, said AI agents are already some of the internet's biggest users.
• He spoke to Business Insider about how AI's popularity will change the internet's infrastructure.
• Levie also predicts agents could soon be given budgets to spend money online.

Who is the internet for? Humans or robots?

Aaron Levie, the cofounder and CEO of Box, told Business Insider he thinks the online world is gradually handing over its keys to AI agents — and that the shift is already underway.

"I think you can easily see a world where agents could be the biggest users of the internet," Levie said in a phone interview on Tuesday. "The timeline, by volume, is already upon us."

His declaration comes as several AI agent labs — OpenAI, Anthropic, Cognition AI, to name a few — promise computers within a computer that can search the web, scan databases, and read legal briefings.

If that activity scales dramatically, Levie said, the implications for our online world are structural.

Software companies have historically optimized for user experience with easy-to-read dashboards, collaboration tools, and clean interfaces. Online firms will need to start optimizing for AI agents instead, he said.

"Much of the internet either needs to get rebuilt, or the software that we use will have to adapt," he added. "All software is going to have to be built for agents. That's going to be a tectonic shift."

This isn't the first time Levie has said he thinks the new internet should be built for the bots: In an X blog post on Sunday, he argued that "the path forward is to make software that agents want."

AI agents… with credit cards?

Levie also expects agents to begin spending money online, particularly in business-to-business settings.

"I might tell an agent I want it to go do a task for me, and I'll give it $20," he said. "It will use software tools and data that it spends money on, and that creates an economic opportunity."

He says that could be helpful for the online content industry. Instead of convincing a human to commit to a costly subscription, publishers could charge agents small fees for access to specific research or data.

Levie thinks businesses will deploy the tech first. Then, everyday consumers will start enabling their own credit card-carrying bots at online stores.

For example, he said, future AI agents might purchase grocery store ingredients before a big meal.

"Over time, as consumers are more and more comfortable, maybe you'll give it a budget for more consumer activities," he said.

Leaders in Silicon Valley have expressed similar excitement for the future of these AI agents. But some also warn that the bots could challenge Americans' jobs.

Recently, OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla said he believes AI agents will knock out 80% of all US jobs in the 2030s. Boris Cherny, the creator of Claude Code, said the software engineer job title will start to "go away" this year. Even Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said AI could wipe out most entry-level, white-collar work.

Levie strikes a more measured tone. He thinks the bigger question is how the internet is restructured for the AI age — not which jobs are doomed.

"This new update of what agents, I think, might lead to a positive update," he said. "It's more of a dynamic of whose content gets into the agent's workflow. That's the new kind of challenge I think everybody faces."