Headless Everything for Personal AI
by markusw on 4/18/2026, 5:49:22 PM
https://interconnected.org/home/2026/04/18/headless
Comments
by: AndrewDucker
On Windows the accessibility APIs give you this. And as these same APIs are used for screen readers, automated testing, and AI access, supporting them is definitely worthwhile.
4/18/2026, 8:52:02 PM
by: xnx
First line: "It’s pretty clear that apps and services are all going to have to go headless: that is, they will have to provide access and tools for personal AI agents without any of the visual UI that us humans use today."<p>Nope. Not clear at all. Agents are good and getting even better about controlling GUIs like the browser and desktop apps.<p>Time and time again we've seen "dumb pipes" win. It ends up being much easier to build a smarter agent than rewrite every piece of software.<p>In the real world, this is why self-driving cars are a better option that replacing every road, street, highway, and avenue with rail.
4/18/2026, 8:10:18 PM
by: stephenlf
Interesting ideas. I would love programmatic access to everything, though I think it’s a stretch to expect this within a year. Personal AI agents are still niche.<p>I suspect the timeline will look something like this:<p>1. 1-2 years, Google and Microsoft expand the capabilities of their OS-integrated apps, including support for integrating with external apps. Microsoft rolls out “Cortana Communications Protocol” (CCP), a closed-source alternative to MCP that integrates with Copilot. People hate it.<p>2. 3-5 years, people become more accustomed to personal AI agents.<p>3. 7 years, Apple rolls out “Apple Intelligence Link Protocol” (AILP) Apple’s take on CCP and MCP. It becomes the de facto standard.<p>4. 10 years, AILP, CCP, and MCP converge into a single standard. 80% of backend web frameworks support this standard out of the box. All phones support it. Millenials everywhere are constantly confounded and befuddled by these AI personal assistants.<p>———<p>It’s funny you mention the Salesforce CLI. I develop a Salesforce-based app for work. My agents and I likely run the `sf` command several hundred times a day.
4/18/2026, 5:53:14 PM