From AI assistants to Big Tech breakup: World Wide Web inventor’s top predictions as it turns 35
Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989. But he has been dissatisfied with the way his original vision for the web has panned out.
Rita Franca | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Personal artificial intelligence assistants that know our health status and legal history inside out. The ability to transfer your data from one place to another seamlessly without any roadblocks.
These are just some of the predictions for the future of the web from the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, on the 35th anniversary of its invention.
Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the world-changing technology in 1989 while working at CERN, the Swiss particle physics research center.
The London-born computer scientist submitted a proposal for an information management system to help his colleagues share information among themselves.
When it started, I couldn’t have predicted that it was going to be like this, this change.
Tim Berners-Lee
Inventor, World Wide Web
Berners-Lee got to continue working on his idea for this information sharing system, and by 1991, the World Wide Web was up and running.
When Tim Berners-Lee started work on the World Wide Web 35 years ago, he had no idea it was about to become the ubiquitous force it is today. “I couldn’t have predicted that it was going to be like this, this change,” he told CNBC.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP via Getty Images
In 1993, Berners-Lee convinced CERN to release the Web protocol and source code into the public domain without any patents or fees. Berners-Lee has attributed the runaway success of the web to this decision.
Berners-Lee remembers what things were like when the web got started 35 years ago. “When it started, I couldn’t have predicted that it was going to be like this, this change,” he told CNBC.
He could tell there were signs the web was going to grow in a big way early on, though. Traffic to the very first website, info.cern.ch, “was going up by a factor of 10 every year, so doubling every four months.”
“We lost track of the logs because they cut off,” Berners-Lee recalls. “Now this is going to be a serious thing. We need to make sure it doesn’t collapse.”
In the decades that have passed since the web’s creation, Berners-Lee sees some of the downsides that have come about. For one, social media feeds tailored by AI algorithms have meant people “feeling angry and upset, or hateful,” he says.
Meanwhile, the ease of producing content on social media platforms and spinning up new websites and blogs has led to a “disempowerment” for people and businesses — and a loss of ownership over our data, he adds.
But Berners-Lee still has some optimism for the future. Here are some of his top predictions for what the web will look like in the next 35 years.
Prediction 1: Everyone will have a personal AI assistant
One of Berners-Lee’s big predictions is that AI will transform the way we interact with the web.
With the arrival of generative AI tools like Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT, tech firms are betting consumers will become much more engaged with digital chatbots to get information they need and help them produce written materials and even code.
There are already firms trying to reimagine what our interaction with the web will look like using AI-powered devices, including Samsung with its Galaxy S24 smartphone, and U.S. startup Humane AI with its wearable Pin device.
You will have an AI assistant that works for you, like a doctor.
Tim Berners-Lee
Inventor, World Wide Web
Berners-Lee thinks that one day we’ll have AI assistants that work for us — similar to our doctors, lawyers, and bankers.
“Some people worry about whether, in 35 years, AI will be more powerful than us,” Berners-Lee told CNBC via a Zoom video call last week.
“One of the things I predict — but it’s something we may have to fight for — is you will have an AI assistant, which you can trust, and it works for you, like a doctor,” Berners-Lee said.
Robert Blumofe, global chief technology officer of Akamai, said he thinks the web will cease being something that humans use — and that AI agents will take the reins on our behalf.
“You can imagine a world years from now where the web is a realm of AI agents and humans no longer effectively use the web,” Blumofe told CNBC in an interview last week.
“It would all be done through AI agents; you would never go directly to your bank account online, or your health provider online, or any e-commerce sites.”
Akamai was founded in response to a challenge Berners-Lee posed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in early 1995 to create a new way of delivering web content to end users faster.
Blumofe still thinks we’ll go online for entertainment TV shows, movies, and video games. But he thinks a lot of the daily functions of our online lives will in future be managed by AI.
“Human beings can go back to our lives in the physical world greeting each other face to face as a physical experience, rather than a virtual experience,” he said.
Prediction 2: We’ll take true ownership of our data across all platforms — including VR
Another thing Berners-Lee is forecasting is a web in which we’ll all have full control of our data.
So, rather than handing away ownership of our data to Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and other tech giants, we’ll instead be able to own our data through a data store, or “pod.”
“You’ll think of your data pod as your digital space, you’ll think of it as being one thing you’re very comfortable with,” Berners-Lee explains.
Pods are a technology Berners-Lee is working on with his startup Inrupt.
Tim Berners-Lee is forecasting is a web in which we’ll all have full control of our data. So, rather than handing away ownership of our data to Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and other tech giants, we’ll instead be able to own our data through a data store, or “pod.”
Sebastian Derungs | Afp via Getty Images
Inrupt is behind something called the Solid protocol, which “aims to radically change the way Web applications work today, resulting in true data ownership as well as improved privacy.”
In 2022, the firm raised $30 million from venture capital firms including Forte Ventures, Akamai, and Glasswing Ventures.
You can go do things with a VR headset, and then when you take the VR headset off, you could do it with a huge screen. And whenever you move, you can grab your phone and the experience will be as one. It should very smoothly go between different devices.
Tim Berners-Lee
Inventor, World Wide Web
In Berners-Lee’s vision for a future web, you’ll be able to use your digital pod to access all your essential applications for instance, email across your phone, but also your laptop, desktop computer, and bigger screens like TVs.
Berners-Lee added that his idea is for us to have a set of “trust apps” that we can allow to communicate with each other to share information and do important tasks much faster.
Take, for example, buying flights. Berners-Lee predicts that the future experience for the web will be one where you can use your wallet to purchase flights off a flight aggregator, and then give it access to data you entrust it with to come up with plans for what to do at your destination.
“All of your to do lists, calendar events and so on, and all the different parts of your data, will come together, so the ability to live your life becomes much more powerful.”
Chintan Patel, chief technology officer for software firm Cisco in the U.K., said he thinks the web is ultimately moving to place that’s open and where information can be shared more easily.
“Even though we have seen increasingly the web becoming a little fragmented with more siloed platforms — more information is collected, sold, even misused in many cases,” Patel said.
However, he noted that OpenAI’s ChatGPT — and several other popular generative AI tools — are powered by data sourced from the open web.
“For all its faults, the web has brought way more benefits to society and made many more things possible,” Patel said.
Berners-Lee predicts his vision for the web will also go a step further with virtual and mixed reality, where the physical and digital world both interact through powerful headsets, according to Berners-Lee.
“You can go do things with a VR headset, and then when you take the VR headset off, you could do it with a huge screen,” he said. “And whenever you move, you can grab your phone and the experience will be as one. It should very smoothly go between different devices.”
Mixed reality is a new dimension for accessing the web experts expect we’ll get more used to over time.
“There’s going to be some great shifts happening in terms of some serious digital connectivity,” Patel told CNBC in an interview.
“It will be called by then some form of spatial computing and spatial environment which won’t be something we are looking for, but an immersive experience delivered to us.”
Prediction 3: A Big Tech company could get broken up
Another thing Berners-Lee says might happen in the future is a big tech company being forced to break up.
Last week, the European Union’s landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA), which forces tech giants to change their platforms to allow for competitor products to flourish, officially came into force, in a major step that advocates hope will lead to a healthier tech competition landscape.
If a tech firm breaches its obligations under the DMA, the European Commission can enforce some meaty legal measures. That includes fines worth up to 10% of a company’s global annual revenues, or 20% for repeat offenders.
Things are changing so quickly. AI is changing very, very quickly. There are monopolies in AI. Monopolies changed pretty quickly back in the web.
Tim Berners-Lee
Inventor, World Wide Web
In some extreme cases, the Commission can demand the breakup of companies — although most antitrust lawyers think such an outcome is unlikely, given the legal hurdles Brussels may face.
Berners-Lee said he always prefers it when tech companies “do the right thing by themselves” before regulators step in. “That’s always been the spirit of the internet.”
He uses the example of the Data Transfer Initiative, a private initiative that launched in 2018 and is now backed by the likes of Google, Apple, and Meta, to encourage portability of photos, videos and other data between their platforms.
“Maybe the companies were prompted a bit by the possibility of regulation,” Berners-Lee said. “But this was an independent thing.”
However, he added: “Things are changing so quickly. AI is changing very, very quickly. There are monopolies in AI. Monopolies changed pretty quickly back in the web.”
“Maybe at some point in the future, agencies will have to work to break up big companies, but we don’t know which company that will be,” Berners-Lee said.
George Kurtz, chief executive officer of Crowdstrike Inc., listens during an interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019.
Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Shares of CrowdStrike slumped more than 6% Wednesday morning after the cybersecurity company issued lackluster revenue guidance for the current quarter.
The security software maker said it expects revenue to range between $1.14 billion and $1.15 billion this quarter, falling short of the $1.16 billion estimate from analysts polled by LSEG. CrowdStrike called for adjusted earnings per share between 82 cents and 84 cents for the quarter, versus an LSEG estimate of adjusted earnings of 81 cents per share.
CrowdStrike also said it is still feeling a pinch from last July’s widespread outage that temporarily halted flights and forced hospitals to push off some procedures. The company recently ended its incentive program, known as customer commitment packages, to lure and maintain customers on the heels of the incident.
Finance chief Burt Podbere said the program shrank revenue by about $11 million in the quarter. He also said the company expects a $10 million to $15 million impact on revenue through the end of the fiscal year.
“It’s the combination of a full valuation and a theme of one-time events that keep coming up that makes it difficult for us to underwrite meaningful upside at these levels,” wrote Evercore ISI’s Peter Levine, as he downgraded shares to in line. “Additionally, we detect growing investor frustration around several lingering, unaddressed issues.”
Despite the weaker-than-expected guidance, CrowdStrike topped earnings estimates and posted in-line revenue for the first fiscal quarter. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 73 cents, topping the adjusted per-share earnings of 65 cents expected by LSEG. The company also lifted its full-year earnings outlook, but maintained revenue estimates.
Revenue grew about 20% in the period, according to a release. The company also recorded a net loss of $110.2 million, or 44 cents per share, compared with net income of $42.8 million, or 17 cents per share, a year ago.
Along with the results, CrowdStrike announced a $1 billion share repurchase plan.
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report
Technology
Apple and Samsung smartphone growth to take hit from tariff uncertainty: Counterpoint Research
Electric vehicles outside a Tesla dealership in Melbourne on April 19, 2023.
William West | AFP | Getty Images
Tesla may be facing declining sales in the U.S. and Europe, but it reported a bright spot in Australia — where its electric vehicle sales rebounded to their highest level in nearly 12 months in May.
The American EV maker said Tuesday that its vehicle sales jumped to 3,897, primarily driven by record sales of its recently revamped Model Y compact sport utility vehicle.
Australian sales of the Model Y soared 122.5% year over year, while sales of the company’s Model 3 dropped significantly.
Total deliveries in Australia were up just 9.3% year over year but surged over 675% from April when the company sold only 500 EVs, according to data from the Australian Electric Vehicle Council.
The EV Council is the exclusive source of Tesla and Polestar sales data in Australia after the brands exited the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) last year.
Tesla’s April sales numbers for Australia had been the company’s worst performance of the year there. Despite the May rebound, the EV makers’ total sales in Australia remains down 48.2% year-to-date compared with the same period last year.
“Tesla’s strong sales growth in Australia this May is an encouraging sign, driven almost entirely by strong demand for the updated Model Y. But globally, Tesla is still facing headwinds,” Liz Lee, associate director at technology market research firm Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.
According to Counterpoint EV Sales Tracker, she added, Tesla’s sales were down 13% year on year in the first quarter. “Thus, while the latest Australian rebound is meaningful locally, it does not yet signal a broader global recovery.”
Musk and brand damage
Tesla’s global sales have suffered in recent months in light of increased competition and reputational damage related to CEO Elon Musk’s political rhetoric and activities.
For example, prior to May, Tesla’s Australia sales struggled amid reports of vandalism and protests related to Musk’s work with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and support for far-right parties in Europe.
Tesla reported on Tuesday that its sales in the U.S. were down 11% in May from last year. And European industry groups on Monday noted significantly lower sales for new Tesla vehicles in Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden last month.
But there have been some bright spots. Tesla posted a surprise bounce back in Norway, where the Model Y helped it post 213% more vehicles in May from a year ago. Tesla also said it hit a record breaking 1,545 sales in Turkey last month.
That data comes after Trump hosted a press conference last week, where he announced that Elon Musk would be officially departing from his role within the federal government and White House.
Though Trump added that Musk will stay on as an advisor, in a research note following the announcement, Wedbush’s Dan Ives said he believed that Musk’s days in politics are essentially over after the brand damage suffered by Tesla.
The Tesla bull said Musk’s pivot back to the EV maker “was the best possible news Tesla investors could have heard,” with the rollout of its robotaxi launch expected later this month. Musk has said that Tesla has already been testing driverless Model Ys.
Tight competition
Musk’s return comes at a time when Tesla is also facing much tighter competition, especially from Chinese EV makers.
BYD, for example, has been expanding globally in the face of tight competition in its home market of China, and is increasingly going head to head with Tesla.
In April, China’s BYD outsold Tesla in Europe for the first time, according to JATO Dynamics. The automotive giant recently announced a slew of discounts, and other Chinese automakers are following suit. In March, it was revealed that Tesla fell behind BYD in total annual sales revenue.
And according to a report from JATO Dynamics, BYD sold more pure battery EVs in Europe than Tesla for the first time ever last month in what it called a “watershed moment.”
In May, however, Tesla was able to regain a lead against BYD in vehicle sales in Australia, with 3,897 sales compared with BYD’s 3,225, based on available data.
Its worth noting that Tesla exclusively sells battery electric vehicles, while BYD also sells hybrid cars. Battery EVs run entirely on electricity, while hybrid vehicles combine an electric battery with an internal combustion engine.
According to data that Australia’s FCAI sent to CNBC, sales of hybrid vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles — a type of hybrid that can be charged by being plugged into an external power source — rose by about 6% and 118%, respectively, year on year in May.
“Recent sales data indicate that consumers are increasingly turning to hybrid and plug-in hybrids as many Australians want to reduce their vehicle emissions,” said Tony Weber, chief executive of the FCAI.
He added that hybrids come without the range limitations associated with battery EVs, which is a particular concern in Australia.
Amid increasing global competition and threats from hybrid vehicles, Counterpoint’s Lee said, Tesla should continue to look to high-potential regions like India, Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America.
“These markets are ramping up EV infrastructure and incentives, and Tesla could benefit by moving early, especially if it localizes production and tailors offerings to local preferences,” she said.
Tesla announced on Tuesday that it is leasing a warehouse in Mumbai that is expected to be used for vehicle servicing as part of the company’s long-anticipated India expansion.
Tesla was up about 0.5% in trading on Tuesday and is down about 15% year-to-date.
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