An Internet Full of AI Agents: Building Trust for an Agent-Driven Web - Charles Maddock, Strawberry (EP 46)

🎙️ Charles Maddock, Co-Founder & CEO, Strawberry
Charles Maddock expects an internet full of AI agents working inside our own accounts, and as CEO of the Stockholm startup Strawberry he is building the browser for it. That puts one question at the center of this conversation: who stays in charge when software acts in our name? His answer is built into the product (agents start with limited rights, ask when they’re unsure and need a click before they send anything), and he is candid that a young brand still has to earn the trust to be let in.
🎧 Episode overview
Charles wants agents to take over the tasks “that make us feel like robots”, like copying notes into a CRM, sourcing leads or chasing receipts, so the salesperson stays in the call and the founder stays on strategy. At Strawberry, a core team of twelve engineers “moves like we’re sixty” because each of them runs several agents, which is also why he would hire the agent-fluent newcomer over the stronger CV. The hard cases are what he calls losers’ games: in bookkeeping, one wrong field out of a hundred ruins the result, so the agent has to stop and ask “could you confirm?” Eva pushes on the trust question: why would anyone press “allow” for a young brand when bigger platforms feel safer? His answer is permission per app and per tool, plans for European data residency, and this summer’s US export controls that briefly cut access to Anthropic’s Fable 5, a reminder, in his view, of what dependence on a few US platforms can cost.
💡 Key themes
Which work agents should take off our desks, and what stays human
How one person running several agents changes leading, hiring and learning the craft
Why the work where one mistake counts needs an agent that asks first
What has to be in place before people press “allow” for an agent with their logins
Whether Europe’s slow start with AI agents is a risk or an opening
👤 About the guest
Charles Maddock is co-founder and CEO of Strawberry, an agentic browser from Stockholm whose AI “companions” work inside the accounts their users are already logged into; the company raised a $6 million seed round in 2025, co-led by General Catalyst and EQT Ventures. He started programming at eleven and now builds the permission system he argues for: agents that can draft an email but not send it until someone allows it, which makes trust a daily product decision for him rather than a talking point.
⏱ Chapters
00:00 An internet run by agents, and what it means for us
06:19 Twelve engineers who move like sixty
09:56 Draft yes, send no: permissions and security
12:27 After Atlas: why the losers’ games matter
18:36 Why would anyone press “allow”?
23:15 Why build it from Stockholm
🔗 Links
Charles Maddock on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-maddock-31798418b/
Strawberry - ⁠https://strawberrybrowser.com⁠
Eva Simone Lihotzky on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/evalihotzky/
raidiant, Eva’s responsible AI advisory - https://www.raidiant.eu/
European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer on AI in European SMEs (the 2%) - https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/news/growing-use-ai-european-companies-2026-10-14_en
Help Net Security on DataDome’s AI Traffic Report Q3 2026 (agentic browser traffic) - https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/10/19/datadome-ai-agent-traffic-report/
Anthropic, statement on the suspension of Fable 5 - https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access
Related episode - The Agentic AI Gap: When Tech is Used Before its Architecture is Ready - Anthony Alcaraz, Agentic AI Architect (EP 25) - https://open.spotify.com/episode/4IdHiLzsgmSaUf5w3LvcaB?si=Nht7kJj8SJalqpTUWB5NUg