As I build AI agents, I’m considering the role of browser automation. Some believe that having a browsing feature is vital for AI agents, while others claim they can perform well without it.
I’m trying to understand which viewpoint is more valid. On one side, browser automation might enable agents to better engage with online content. Yet, there might be simpler solutions that don’t require managing browser instances.
Has anyone here developed AI agents that utilize browser automation or those that don’t? I’d love to hear your experiences and whether the browser feature significantly impacts agent performance and capabilities.
yeah, it really depends on your use case! i’ve played around with both too. while browser automation can be a real pain with all the errors and stuff, sometimes it’s the only way for certain sites. for most basics tho, APIs r usually better.
Been working with AI agents for two years now. Browser automation’s only worth it when you’re stuck with legacy systems or sites that actively block APIs. The overhead sucks though - way more memory usage, stability problems, and error handling gets messy. I always start without browser capabilities first. Forces you to build cleaner solutions with direct API calls and scraping libraries. Only add browser automation when you actually can’t get the data any other way. Most of my successful agents use browser automation for maybe 20% of tasks and stick to lighter methods for everything else.
Browser automation? Last resort only. I’ve built several agents over three years and the maintenance headache isn’t worth it. Sure, performance matters, but reliability kills you. Websites change constantly and break your scripts. You’ll spend more time fixing selectors and handling weird edge cases than actually building useful features. I always try everything else first: APIs, RSS feeds, structured data, basic HTTP scraping with decent parsing. If I absolutely have to use browser automation, I isolate it in separate modules so when it breaks (and it will), it doesn’t take down everything else. My most reliable agents? Built around stable data sources, not dynamic web pages.
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