Automating the Web: The Rise of AI Agents

AI agents are becoming more popular and many startups are trying to create tools to automate tasks online. One of these startups is Browser Use. They have created a tool that makes websites easier for AI agents to understand and navigate. Browser Use has recently raised 17 million dollars in seed funding. This funding was led by Felicis' Astasia Myers. Other investors included Paul Graham, A Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners. This funding round had not been reported before. Browser Use is part of Y Combinator’s 2025 winter batch. They have gained a lot of attention recently. This is partly due to the Chinese startup Butterfly Effect. Butterfly Effect used Browser Use in its Manus tool, which went viral. Browser Use was founded last year by Magnus Müller and Gregor Zunic. They met while getting their master’s degrees in data science at ETH Zurich. Müller had been working on web-scraping tools for years. The pair combined web scraping with data science to create a tool that could prompt a browser to perform a task. Müller and Zunic built a demo of Browser Use in just five weeks. The demo was a hit, so they open-sourced it. Browser Use breaks down the elements of a website into a simpler, text-like format. This makes it easier for AI agents to understand and navigate websites. Many AI companies want their agents to interact with websites more smoothly. Müller believes that Browser Use can become a key tool for this need. He mentioned that more than 20 companies in the current Y Combinator Winter batch used Browser Use for their own projects. Some websites, like LinkedIn, change frequently. This can cause problems for AI agents. Müller noted that companies often ask, "What can we do to make it easier for agents to navigate our website? " Browser Use aims to solve this problem. Felicis has been interested in the AI agents space for years. They saw Browser Use as a great opportunity to grow their portfolio. Myers highlighted the company’s founding team and its open-source-first approach as key factors in their decision to invest. The goal of web AI agents is to automate human tasks. They act as a bridge between static, text-focused models and the ever-changing digital landscape. This makes them a crucial part of the future of AI.