Berners-Lee still has some optimism about the future, as reflected in his predictions of what the Internet will look like in the next 35 years (European News Agency)

Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the technology that changed the world in 1989 while working at CERN, the Swiss particle physics research center, where the London-born computer scientist proposed an information management system to help his colleagues share information with each other.

Berners-Lee continued to work on his idea for an information exchange system, and by 1991, the World Wide Web was up and running.

In 1993, Berners-Lee convinced CERN to release the web protocol and source code to the world without any patents or royalties.

Berners-Lee attributed the enormous success of the Web to this decision.

Berners-Lee remembers what things were like when the Internet started 35 years ago.

"When it started, I didn't expect it to be this way, this change," he told CNBC.

Lee believes there were signs that the Internet was going to grow exponentially early on.

“Traffic to the first site was increasing 10 times every year, doubling every 4 months.”

But decades since the Web was created, Berners-Lee sees some downsides.

For example, Lee finds that social media feeds designed by AI algorithms have caused people to “feel angry, upset or hateful.”

Meanwhile, the ease of producing content on social media platforms and creating new websites and blogs has led to people and businesses being “disempowered” – and losing ownership of our data, according to the web founder.

In 1993, Berners-Lee convinced CERN to release the web protocol and source code to the world without any patents or royalties (Reuters)

But Berners-Lee still has some optimism about the future.

Here are some of his most important predictions for what the Internet will look like over the next 35 years.

Everyone will have an AI-powered personal assistant

One of Berners-Lee's big predictions is that artificial intelligence will change the way we interact with the web.

With the arrival of generative AI tools like ChatGPT powered by OpenAI, technology companies are betting that consumers will become more engaged with digital chatbots to get the information they need and help them produce written materials and even code.

There are already companies trying to reimagine what our interactions with the web will look like using AI-powered devices, including Samsung with its Galaxy S24 smartphone, and startup Humane AI in... United States with the Pin wearable device.

Berners-Lee believes that one day we will have AI assistants working for us, similar to our doctors, lawyers and bankers.

“Some people are concerned about whether artificial intelligence will be more powerful than us in 35 years,” Berners-Lee told CNBC via a Zoom video call last week.

“One of the things I expect is that you will have an AI assistant that you can trust that works for you, like a doctor,” Berners-Lee said.

Robert Plomovi, Akamai's global chief technology officer, said he believes the web will stop being something humans use and that AI agents will take over for us.

“You can imagine a world years from now where the web becomes the world of AI agents and humans no longer use the web effectively,” Blumov told CNBC in an interview last week.

"It will all be done through AI agents; you will never go directly to your online bank account, your online healthcare provider, or any e-commerce sites."

Akamai was founded in response to a challenge posed by Berners-Lee at MIT in early 1995 to create a new way to deliver web content to end users faster.

Blumovie still believes that we will connect to the Internet to watch entertainment TV shows, movies, and video games.

But he believes that in the future, many of the daily functions of our online lives will be managed by artificial intelligence.

Berners-Lee believes that one day we will have artificial intelligence assistants working for us, similar to our doctors, lawyers, and bankers (Shutterstock)

We will take true ownership of our data across all platforms including VR

The other thing Berners-Lee predicts is an Internet in which we can all have full control over our data.

Instead of ceding ownership of our data to Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and other tech giants, we will instead be able to own our data through what Lee called a “data store or capsule.”

“You'll think of your data closet as your own digital space, and you'll think of it as your own thing that you're comfortable with,” Berners-Lee explains.

Berners-Lee and his startup Inrupt are working on the Solid protocol, which “aims to radically change the way web applications work today, leading to true ownership of data as well as improved privacy.”

The company raised $30 million in 2022, from venture capital firms including Forte Ventures, Akamai, and Glasswing Ventures.

In Berners-Lee's vision of the future web, you'll be able to use your digital closet to access all your basic apps, for example, email via your phone, but also laptops, desktops and larger screens like TVs.

Berners-Lee added that his idea is to have a set of “trust apps” that we can allow to communicate with each other to share information and do important tasks much faster.

Chintan Patel, chief technology officer at software company Cisco in the UK, said he believes the web is eventually moving to an open place where information can be shared more easily.

“Although we have increasingly seen the internet become a bit fragmented with more isolated platforms, more information is being collected, sold, and in many cases even misused,” Patel said.

"Despite all its drawbacks, the Internet has brought more benefits to society and made many things possible," Patel said.

Berners-Lee expects there to be an Internet in which we can all have full control over our data (Getty)

Berners-Lee expects that the web - in his vision - will also go further through virtual and mixed reality, where the physical and digital world interact through virtual reality glasses.

“You can do things with VR goggles, and then when you take the goggles off, you can do it with a huge screen,” he said.

"And as you move, you can hold your phone and it will be the same experience. It should move seamlessly between different devices," he added.

Mixed reality is a new dimension to accessing the web, and experts predict that we will become more accustomed to it over time.

“There are going to be some big shifts happening in terms of some forms of digital communication,” Chintan Patel, chief technology officer at UK enterprise technology company Cisco, told CNBC.

"It will be called at that time a form of spatial computing and a spatial environment that will not be something we look for, but an immersive experience that is presented to us," he added.

It is possible that a major technology company will be broken up

Another thing Berners-Lee says he expects to happen in the future is a major technology company having to break up.

Last week, the European Union's landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA) officially came into force, forcing tech giants to change their platforms to allow competing products to flourish, in a major move that is hoped to lead to a more transparent tech competition landscape.

If a technology company breaches its obligations under the Digital Markets Act, the European Commission can impose some tough legal measures.

This includes fines of up to 10% of a company's global annual revenue, or 20% for repeat violators.

Source: CNBC