This is a column about AI. My fiancé works at Anthropic. See my full ethics disclosure here .

In November 2023, a year after the release of ChatGPT, Bill Gates wrote that " AI is about to completely change how you use computers ." Writing on his blog, Gates predicted that the age of apps was coming to an end.

"You won’t have to use different apps for different tasks," Gates wrote. "You’ll simply tell your device, in everyday language, what you want to do. And depending on how much information you choose to share with it, the software will be able to respond personally because it will have a rich understanding of your life. In the near future, anyone who’s online will be able to have a personal assistant powered by artificial intelligence that’s far beyond today’s technology."

Does 2026 still count as the "near future"? Since around the time of Gates' blog post on the subject, tech leaders have predicted that we would soon see the rise of agents like the ones proposed by the Microsoft co-founder.…