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In 2017, just before Microsoft forged a partnership with a then relatively unknown startup called OpenAI, Bill Gates shared a memo with CEO Satya Nadella and a small group of the company's top executives. A new world order, Gates predicted, would soon be brought on by what he called "AI agents" — digital personal assistants that could anticipate our every want and need. These agents would be far more powerful than Siri and Alexa, with godlike knowledge and supernatural intuition.
"Agents are not only going to change how everyone interacts with computers," Gates wrote. "They're also going to upend the software industry, bringing about the biggest revolution in computing since we went from typing commands to tapping on icons."