Hyperlinks are Dead, Long Live AI: Microsoft and PayPal Join Forces to Make Browsers “Obsolete Antiques”
Microsoft and PayPal’s joint launch of Copilot Checkout marks a fundamental reconstruction of e-commerce logic. This feature allows users to complete the full loop from product discovery to payment directly within the Copilot chat interface, without clicking blue hyperlinks to jump to merchant websites. This signals the true arrival of “Agentic AI”—AI is no longer just a chatting co-pilot, but a purchasing agent holding your wallet. For merchants, this implies a collapse and rebuilding of traffic logic: brands may degenerate into backend suppliers for AI, while for users, shopping convenience comes at the cost of an algorithmic surrender of choice.
