The Next Communication Protocol: AI-to-AI

Digital communication has come a long way. From the telegraph to the telephone, to email, to instant messaging, every leap has changed how we interact. We’ve lived through faxes, Skype calls, Slack messages, Teams meetings, Zoom fatigue - and it all, email remained the backbone of business communication.

Until now.

We’re entering a new phase. Communication is no longer just human-to-human. It’s not even human-to-AI. Increasingly, it’s AI-to-AI.

The State of Communication Today

Right now, you have choices: call someone, email them, message them on Slack or Teams. Businesses still rely heavily on email. It's structured, searchable, and professional. But it's also inefficient. Your inbox is full of newsletters, follow-ups, copied threads, and now - AI-generated text.

On LinkedIn, you’ll find AI-written posts answered by AI-written comments. In your inbox, AI tools are generating outreach messages and responses. We're already surrounded by machines talking to machines, and most of us are just clicking “archive.”

The problem? It's overwhelming. There’s too much low-value communication and not enough signal. It’s noise. Just well-polished, structured, well-formatted noise.

AI Isn’t Just Helping You Write—It’s Taking Over the Task

At first, AI helped us write faster. Summarize this. Draft that. But that was just the warm-up.

Today, AI can manage your inbox, respond to routine emails, summarize long threads, and handle bookings and transactions. Soon, your AI will reach out to someone else’s AI directly [skip the human entirely] and get things done.

Let’s say you want to order industrial equipment. You don’t want a 30-minute sales call. You don’t want to fill out a form, wait for an email, and go back and forth for a quote. You just want it done.

So you ask your AI to “Order 20 PLCs from the usual supplier.”, and it will check pricing, confirm availability, negotiate if needed, and then complete the order, very possibly through direct interaction with the supplier’s AI. No inbox. No threads. No humans in the loop (unless a decision is required).

That’s AI-to-AI communication. And it’s not a future concept. It's already happening in pieces through APIs, integrations, and autonomous agents working behind the scenes.

From JARVIS to Real Life

This is JARVIS, but it's a boring version of Iron Man's suit. Not cinematic, not saving the world. Just saving time. Everyone now has access to some form of AI assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, ChatGPT, and other countless task-specific AIs. They’re getting better, faster, and more connected.

Smartphones are integrating AI natively (Apple Intelligence, Gemini, Copilot). Wearables are rebranding themselves as AI-first products like Meta Ray-Bans and Humane AI Pin, and as much as I dislike using buzzwords, the hardware and software are converging.

The interface is disappearing. You won’t open an app to send an email instead, you’ll just say, “Let them know we accept the terms,” and your AI will decide whether to send a message, place a call, or trigger an API.

Gen Z Doesn’t Want to Talk—AI Understands That

Zoomers don’t answer phone calls. They don’t want to talk to strangers. They want control, speed, and simplicity. Uber lets you mute your driver. DoorDash lets you avoid speaking to the restaurant. Every interface is designed to reduce friction.

AI communication fits this mindset perfectly. You don’t draft a message, you approve it. You don’t make a call, you delegate it. The friction isn’t reduced, it’s removed.

It’ll make humans talk less, but at least your AI can send a voice clone and avatar video to Aunt Debbie who you’ve ignored since last Christmas!

What Happens to Email?

Email won’t vanish. It’s too embedded in business systems. But it will shrink. It will stop being a daily burden. Inbox zero will stop being a goal - because your AI will triage, summarize, and respond.

Just like voicemail faded, just like faxes became irrelevant, email will decline in visibility. Not disappear. But fade into the background, handled mostly by machines.

Customer service? No more contact forms or support@ addresses. You’ll ask your AI to deal with it, and it will.

AI as the Default Interface

Right now, AI tools are mostly assistants. Soon, they’ll be agents - autonomous, persistent, and proactive. They’ll handle repetitive decisions, communication flows, and task execution.

This isn’t just writing better emails. It’s skipping email entirely.

AI will:

• Identify who to contact
• Draft and send the message
• Interpret the response
• Take the next action
• Loop you in only when needed

That’s communication - redefined. Less about messaging, more about delegation.

What’s Next?

Fewer human interactions for routine tasks

• A rise in AI-mediated communication in B2B and B2C
• Businesses building APIs and endpoints designed for AI agents
• The inbox becoming a machine-to-machine channel
• Humans reserving conversation for things that matter

And as people realize this shift, we’ll see a cultural response. “No-AI zones.” Coffee shops that ban phones and wearables, probably through frequency jammers (that don't interfere with first responder comms) and culture change that returns us to analog connections - for balance.

We’ll crave real conversations - but only when they’re meaningful.

The Only Thing AI Won’t Replace: Art

There’s one space AI won’t fully take over: art. Real art - writing, painting, film, music - is how humans communicate emotion. AI can mimic style but not feeling. We’ll always reserve that space for ourselves. I want AI to build Excel sheets and fix my assembly line; let us humans create beautiful music and art!

But business comms? AIs can have it because Monday mornings with 186 unread emails are so over.