Parag Agrawal's AI Bet: Why Former Twitter Chief Is Backing Autonomous Web Agents

After his dramatic exit from Twitter, Parag Agrawal is doubling down on artificial intelligence with a new startup that could reshape how information flows across the web. The former CEO, who was removed from his position when Elon Musk took over the platform in October 2022, has launched Parallel Web Systems Inc., a venture designed to empower AI agents to independently gather and interpret data online.

The $30 Million Bet on AI Research

Agrawal’s new company just closed a $30 million funding round and operates with a 25-person team, according to Bloomberg. The startup’s flagship offering, the Deep Research API, demonstrates impressive performance metrics—outperforming both human researchers and leading AI systems like OpenAI’s GPT-5 on several research evaluation benchmarks.

The momentum is already real. “We already power millions of research tasks every day,” Agrawal said in a LinkedIn announcement Friday. Early adopters include established firms that have integrated Parallel’s technology into their automated workflows, while development teams are leveraging its AI coding agents to locate documentation and resolve technical errors.

From Twitter to AI: Agrawal’s Strategic Pivot

Agrawal’s journey to launching this AI company reflects calculated decision-making. During his tenure as Twitter’s chief technology officer under Jack Dorsey, he built machine learning infrastructure for the platform. He then served as CEO from November 2021 through October 2022 before his termination following Musk’s acquisition.

What followed was instructive. Rather than scrambling for a quick corporate role, Agrawal returned to the fundamentals—diving deep into AI research papers and writing code himself. When multiple struggling tech companies approached him with cleanup roles, he declined, maintaining focus on what genuinely excited him: building AI infrastructure.

The Vision: More Agents Than Humans

The core insight driving Parallel is radical: autonomous agents, not humans, will become the internet’s dominant user base. This isn’t speculative thinking—Agrawal shared concrete projections with Bloomberg: “There’ll be more agents on the internet than there are humans around. You will probably deploy 50 agents on your behalf to be on the internet. I think that’s going to happen soon, like next year.”

This realization emerged after Agrawal initially conceptualized an AI-powered healthcare startup. The pivot to web automation reflects his belief that the real opportunity lies in infrastructure serving machine-to-machine interactions rather than traditional human workflows.

Ethereum Builders See the Same Future

Agrawal’s conviction about AI agents aligns with recent commentary from Coinbase developers. Kevin Leffew and Lincoln Murr recently identified autonomous AI agents as Ethereum’s next major power user. Their technical analysis points to how a less-utilized HTTP standard, combined with Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 3009, could facilitate a new wave of blockchain-based commerce.

The implications are substantial: AI agents could execute stablecoin transfers autonomously, enabling scenarios like self-driving vehicles automatically paying for fuel or AI systems monetizing content generation in real time—all without human intervention at each step.

The Severance Dispute Still Unresolved

While Agrawal’s new venture captures attention, the legal aftermath of his Twitter departure remains unresolved. Agrawal and other ousted executives filed suit against Musk, arguing they were owed approximately $128 million in severance when their employment contracts were terminated. A district court advanced the case in November, though a final judgment has yet to materialize.

Despite that ongoing litigation, Agrawal’s focus clearly rests on building Parallel into a foundational AI infrastructure company—one positioned to capitalize on the emerging era of autonomous web intelligence.