The internet is changing digital engagement. Here’s how we make it fairer for everyone

Over the past three decades, the internet has become an essential tool for virtually every economic and social enterprise. It has transformed how we connect, express, create and transact, becoming a foundation of global communication and innovation.

Today, the integration of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR) and smart wearables is transforming the internet and ushering in a new era.

This moment brings a critical opportunity to examine this shifting landscape, chart the major changes and build a new value model for the web: re-examining the value of our collective information and knowledge, what the optimal way of value exchange can be and how we ensure that digital ecosystems strengthen human agency.

For most of its history, the internet economy has been driven by scale. It democratized content creation and information access, enabling billions to publish, transact and collaborate in real time, where an idea from one corner of the world can reach millions overnight.

From this model attention became the primary signifier of value. Since the most critical success indicator was engagement, an economic model and incentive structure optimizing digital engagement became dominant.

The technologies now reshaping the web allow it to move beyond that calculus. By using decentralized systems and tools that give users more control, people can now own their data and the things they produce online.

This emerging landscape allows us to think differently about how economic signals are created online. Rather than relying on proxies such as engagement time, future systems could recognize when content enriches understanding, solves a problem or builds trust.

AI models that interpret human context could help quantify satisfaction or confidence without crude metrics. Wearable and ambient technologies might reveal not only how people interact with digital experiences but how interactions contribute to wellbeing or productivity.

These new forms of feedback – if designed with ethics and transparency – could underpin a richer, more responsible measure of value. These developments make it possible to imagine a digital economy that values depth as much as reach – where information, content and interaction are recognized for delivering genuine benefit as much as engagement.

Crucially, this shift also rebalances the relationship between individuals and the digital environments they inhabit. For decades, users have ceded control of their data in exchange for access to platforms. The next wave of technologies provides a path to alter that equation.

Through secure identity frameworks, encrypted storage and intelligent agents acting on our behalf, individuals could choose how and when their data participates in the broader economy.

Rather than being passively observed, people could become active stewards of their digital selves – deciding what to share, what to monetize and what to keep private. In doing so, they would help define new standards of transparency and consent that make trust a feature, not a trade-off.

The implications extend far beyond privacy. When users have agency over their data, they can participate more directly in the creation of value. A person’s interactions, preferences and creative contributions all generate signals that can guide innovation, improve systems and fuel discovery.

If those signals are shared on fair terms, the collective intelligence of the internet can grow without exploiting the individuals who sustain it. In this way, control becomes a right and foundation for more equitable participation in the digital economy. The same technologies that once optimized for scale can now help us do so for stewardship.

This evolution also invites a reassessment of what sustainability means in digital systems. The early internet prioritized openness and speed; the next one might emphasize resilience and trust.

As AI agents and networked devices begin to mediate more interactions, the challenge is to ensure that automation amplifies human potential rather than replaces it. The goal is not just to make the web more efficient at delivering content but to make it more effective at supporting understanding, creativity and shared purpose.

Economic incentives will still matter but they can be calibrated toward outcomes that reflect collective wellbeing rather than fleeting digital engagement.

The window to define a new paradigm for sustainable value will not remain open forever. Stakeholders are already experimenting with alternative commercial models and this iterative stage represents the optimal time to build frameworks based on a wide range of considerations and viewpoints.

Whatever strategy goes forward, it seems we are now building a web where machine engagement, not just human engagement, sustains the flow of value online.

Cloudflare has launched a “pay-per-crawl” feature that charges AI bots for scraping content, while others are negotiating licensing deals or bespoke micropayment agreements. OpenAI is directly building platform functionality into ChatGPT, as displayed in their Walmart partnership.

While these early steps demonstrate attempts at a rebalanced digital economy, the space is still a contested one, with various stakeholders seeking to scale their proposed solutions and iterate against perceived abuses.

Building a future framework that is broadly beneficial will require a community of global, cross-sector stakeholders to unify technological expertise, user-centric policy, value-generating design and sustainable governance.

The World Economic Forum has begun this process through its work with the AI Governance Alliance and Defining & Building the Metaverse Initiative. It now seeks to take up this critical project via the Connected Future Initiative.

As Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has observed, “We can’t stop the bus but we can steer it.” The challenge now is to see the road clearly and to steer wisely.