The latest push by Microsoft to foster a new era of artificial intelligence interoperability echoes the formative lessons of the web’s early days.

In a recent conversation leading up to Microsoft’s Build developer conference, Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott outlined a vision for the “agentic web” — a connected ecosystem of AI agents that parallels the disruptive rise of internet browsers and web standards in the 1990s, as covered by GeekWire.

Scott’s argument is straightforward: the future of artificial intelligence will be defined not by closed, siloed systems, but by open standards that unlock the potential for AI agents to seamlessly collaborate across company boundaries. “It means that your imagination gets to drive what the agentic web becomes, not just a handful of companies that happen to see some of these problems first,” Scott told reporters, drawing a direct parallel to the internet’s historic expansion powered by HTML and HTTP.

Open standards, Scott contends, would level the playing field and spur innovation, much as the open protocols of the early web facilitated a Cambrian explosion of innovation by allowing developers and companies to build interoperable products atop an agreed-upon foundation. He cited the Model Context Protocol (MCP), introduced by AI startup Anthropic and supported by Microsoft, as a promising example. Backed by Google, MCP aims to create a standardized “language” that would let AI agents share context, intent, and data about their operations, effectively enabling them to work together regardless of origin.

This vision comes at a critical juncture for AI. Today’s AI agents are highly capable but fundamentally limited by their lack of persistent memory and their inability to interact outside their own silos. Current systems, as Scott pointed out, are transactional: they do not remember past interactions, and thus cannot build on prior knowledge or collaborate effectively. “This is a core part of how you train a biological brain, you don’t brute force everything in your head every time you need to solve a particular problem,” Scott explained to GeekWire.

The technical challenge is serious. Enhancing AI agents’ memory requires substantial computing resources, making the process expensive at scale. Microsoft is experimenting with a solution called structured retrieval augmentation. This approach enables agents to extract and store the most pertinent information from each conversational turn, gradually building an internal roadmap — much like the way humans learn and remember.

Scott emphasized that memory efficiency is not just a technical or cost issue; it’s foundational to enabling the next wave of AI applications. With more robust memory, AI agents could handle complex, multi-step tasks over time, recall user preferences, and transfer knowledge between different contexts. “We want to make it so that any company’s AI agents can work together with those from other companies and have a memory that persists,” Scott told The Economic Times.

Microsoft’s advocacy for open standards in AI is not happening in a vacuum. Memory efficiency and interoperability are becoming industry priorities as enterprises demand AI systems capable of scaling across vast and diverse infrastructures. Scott’s comments suggest that Microsoft is positioning itself as a catalyst — and perhaps a convener — for an industry-wide movement reminiscent of the World Wide Web Consortium’s foundational role for the internet.

As developers convene in Seattle for the Build conference, Microsoft is expected to unveil new developer tools aimed at making AI both more collaborative and cost-effective. The underlying message: the next phase of digital transformation will not be won through proprietary lock-in, but by empowering the broadest possible community to build, connect, and reshape the digital world. For industry insiders, the stakes are familiar — echoing the browser wars, but with far greater implications for the fabric of tomorrow’s AI-powered economy.