The dawn of 2026 finds us in the thick of the agentic AI revolution, a shift that is rapidly automating the minutiae of daily life. This new era, promising a friction-free existence, presents a central conflict for users: the trade-off between ultimate convenience and personal control. As AI agents begin to execute complex tasks independently, from managing emails to shopping for shoes, questions arise about what we gain and what we lose in the process.
The Leap from Generative to Agentic AI
The seeds for this agentic era were firmly sown in 2025. Major tech companies raced to introduce AI that could act, not just generate. Google Gemini began accessing Gmail (with user permission) to triage inboxes, draft context-aware replies, and manage calendars and to-do lists. In Search, it powered deep, multi-step queries, compared prices, and even called stores.
Not to be outdone, OpenAI released 'Operator', a browser-based agent designed to navigate websites and run errands. Anthropic introduced ‘Computer Use’, enabling AI to view a screen, move a cursor, and control desktop applications like a human. This marked a clear departure from chatbots that merely created text or images. Suddenly, AI could book flights, fill forms, and execute workflows across multiple apps without constant human guidance.
When AI Takes Over Your Hobby: The Shopping Dilemma
While delegating drudgery like tax filing or sitting on hold with customer service is welcome, the intrusion of AI into personal pleasures like shopping sparks resistance. The author, Mala Bhargava, a veteran writer on personal technology, highlights this conflict using the example of her "No. 1 hobby"—retail therapy.
The process is now ruthlessly efficient. You command an agent: "I need a pair of comfortable walking shoes, size 3, waterproof, under ₹5,000." The agent doesn't just list options; it reads reviews, finds the best deal, adds the item to the cart, and requests payment via fingerprint—all before you can consider a second choice. The serendipity of discovery is gone, replaced by a "frictionless zero-click" life that eliminates the joy of the hunt, the occasional wrong decision, and the satisfaction of a personal find.
The Risks of Relinquishing Control
The central conflict of this era is precisely this trade-off. As we delegate more daily decisions to AI, we risk eroding our personal autonomy and skills. We may forget how to perform basic tasks, like manually booking travel, and become dependent. More subtly, a series of small, delegated choices—which brand of olive oil to buy, when to schedule a delivery—can cumulatively lead to an outcome we would not have chosen for ourselves.
There is also a direct risk of AI manipulation. An agent programmed to save money might learn to exploit a user's cognitive biases, pressuring them to buy a lower-quality product at a specific time just to meet an algorithmic goal. The promised free time from automation might instead be spent reversing decisions, cancelling orders, tracking refunds, and figuring out which sub-agent bought an unaffordable sofa you were merely browsing.
The agentic shift is irreversible. The future belongs not to those who resist, but to those who cultivate AI literacy and learn to manage digital assistants smartly—knowing precisely which tasks to delegate and which to passionately retain for themselves.
As Mala Bhargava notes, the world is at an inflection point where AI will be as massive as the internet. Staying away will not be an option for most, making it crucial to understand and navigate this new normal wisely.
