Zero UI and AI Agents: A Future Without Interfaces?
From touchscreens to voice commands, zero UI and intelligent AI agents are transforming how users interact with technology. Brands must respond to this change or risk vanishing from view!
Next stop: zero user interface – the rise of ambient systems
The digital world is becoming more natural and increasingly adapting to human forms of interaction. Meanwhile, the role played by the traditional, click-based internet is declining. Menus and other navigation elements on websites are increasingly being replaced by voice commands and dialogue-based systems.
We have entered an era in which AI agents, ambient systems and conversations determine what people discover, how they make decisions and whom they trust. Jens-Christian Jensen (Plan.Net Group, Value Chain Lab Lead for the Artificial Intelligence working group at the German Association for the Digital Economy, BVDW) also sees this as a key development:
“AI will continue to embed itself into our everyday lives in increasingly unobtrusive ways. Interfaces will gradually disappear. In this environment, AI agents will become the next generation of brand ambassadors. Brands will gain visibility by using agents to speak consistently, act according to particular situations and offer contextual added value. AI providers will become experience platforms, where information, communication and commerce converge.”
Agentic AI is seamlessly blending the internet into everyday life. Generative AI is no longer just a tool for content creation – systems can now understand human needs, remember contexts and respond in real time. According to Bain & Company, 80 percent of consumers already use zero-click search results for around 40 percent of their search queries. These figures highlight the extent to which information is already being accessed beyond traditional interfaces.
Will AI agents be the new faces of brands?
AI agents are the next step in the evolution of digital interaction. They’re able to understand spoken language, anticipate needs and act independently, enabling them to become intelligent brand representatives. By curating information, initiating actions and making context-based decisions, Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini are already demonstrating the capability of agents to do far more than just answer questions.
“Zero UI won’t succeed because it’s invisible. It will succeed because it’s accountable. This is where the term ‘agentic’ comes in: Agents are the new faces of the interface,” as Tor Thompson (GM Global Business Team, Microsoft Advertising) argued in her keynote speech “Welcome to Zero UI: Where Brands Meet the Human Moment” at DMEXCO 2025. As far as brands are concerned, this means they need to be present where agents make decisions and offer content that’s both authentic and reliable.
Visibility in the zero-UI world
Zero UI doesn’t signal the end of UX design, but rather its transformation. Interfaces are disappearing into the background, while contextual intelligence and adaptive systems are coming to the fore. A brand’s success depends less on website design and more on whether it’s discoverable and regarded as relevant and trustworthy by both humans and machines.
If this step in the evolution of human–brand interaction is rigorously applied, it could lead to great things, as Tor Thompson explained:
“We observed a 53-percent increase in purchases within 30 minutes when Copilot was involved in conversations. In a retail environment, there was an even more dramatic rise to 194 percent.”
For marketers, these developments give rise to a new set of requirements: content must be machine-readable, structured semantically and API-based. One of the emerging solutions is large language model optimization (LLMO), a similar concept to the SEO of the past.
Zero UI transforms customer journeys
The conventional linear model of the customer journey – awareness, consideration, conversion – is crumbling. Today, interaction begins not with a click, but with a signal: “I need new running shoes,” “Book my flight,” “Show me sustainable options.” AI agents understand these intentions, link them to contextual data and fulfill needs – often before users consciously articulate them. As a result, the attention, decision and action steps often merge instantly in a single moment. For marketers, this means shifting from a reactive strategy to a proactive presence. And that’s why more and more experts are turning away from traditional campaigns and toward continuous system architecture. Tor Thompson’s advice:
“We need to rethink how we measure success. Outcomes are what matters, not volumes. A focus on lifetime value and engagement is key.”
Trust as a system requirement
In a zero-UI world, trust is no longer an objective of communication, but rather a technical necessity. When AI agents act on behalf of users, data quality and authority determine which brands remain visible.
This new trust architecture is built on three layers:
- Clean data: Unbiased, complete information as the basis for AI-powered decisions.
- Transparency: Systems and processes must be both secure and open to scrutiny.
- Emotional intelligence: AI must understand human statements in context.
Microsoft’s 4 principles for brands in the age of zero UI
As we saw at DMEXCO 2025, Microsoft is positioning itself at the forefront of the zero-UI movement with Copilot, its AI agent. The company advocates four principles:
- Design for agents and users
Structure content so that both humans and machines can understand it. In other words, incorporate machine-readable branding.
- Build systems, not tactics
Rather than one-off campaigns, develop ecosystems that are adaptive and capable of learning.
- Deliver value invisibly
Create value before a need arises – through anticipation rather than visibility.
- Optimize for presence, not page views
Measure success on the basis of relevance and intent fulfillment, not clicks.
Takeaway: Brands must redefine visibility in the zero-UI era
Rather than heralding the end of marketing, zero UI is the next step in its evolution. Brands need to learn to operate without a visible interface – reliable content and contextual relevance are the best ways to achieve this. While these developments mean that marketing is becoming more systemic and increasingly delivered by AI, interaction with AI agents is also making it more immediate and more human. In other words, creativity, empathy and technology are merging to form a single discipline.
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