The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future of AI Agents

AI agents are everywhere in the discourse and nowhere in the infrastructure. Everyone's building one. Few are building the coordination layer that lets agents—and the people behind them—actually work together.

This guide is for people who see that gap and want to know what comes next.

The current state

Right now, "AI agent" usually means: a wrapper around an LLM that can use tools, persist some state, and complete a bounded task. Useful. Not sufficient.

The missing piece isn't better models. It's observable games. Agents need to know what game they're in, what moves are valid, and what counts as a win. Without that, we get either rigid workflows (no agency) or chaos (no coordination).

Where it's heading

The future of AI agents is the future of delegation with accountability. You need to be able to hand off a role—not just a task—and have the system signal back what's happening. That requires:

1. Bounded commitments – The agent (or human) accepts a role for a defined scope and time.
2. Observable outcomes – You can see progress and results without micromanaging.
3. Clean exits – When the game ends, the commitment ends. No legacy entanglement.

This is the same infrastructure Hitchhikers need for human coordination. Agents are just the first place it's obviously broken.

Why it matters for you

If you're building in this space, you're not just building a product. You're building coordination infrastructure. The teams that figure out how to make agents play well with humans—and with each other—will define the next layer of the stack.

If you're a Hitchhiker, you've already felt the pain of infrastructure that doesn't fit. Agents will amplify that. The waystations we build now will be the nodes that agents (and their operators) plug into later.

What to build next

• Observable agent roles – Define what an agent can do, for how long, and how you measure success. Make it legible.
• Human–agent handoffs – Clear boundaries where a human takes over or an agent escalates. No gray zones.
• Seasonal engagements – Agents (and humans) commit for a season, then exit. No permanent coupling.

The future of AI agents is the future of coordination. Build the infrastructure.