This story is from September 29, 2026. For the latest, see today's news.
In this a16z video interview, General Partner Anish Acharya talks with David Pawlan, creator of Assistant Bench, about the rapid rise of personal . Pawlan has tested many assistants on real-world tasks like managing email, booking travel and handling financial admin, and the two discuss why the most useful agents may work invisibly in the background.
They debate what interface will win—apps, text, voice or wearables—how much autonomy users will grant their agents, and what happens as agents begin interacting with each other. The conversation also touches on examples like Poke, Instinct and Muse, Amazon's blocking of Muse versus Shopify's openness, and the economics of running agents that could cost around $20 a day.
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