Tim Berners-Lee

Solid Project na Data Sovereignty

Beyond im work we e help lay foundation for web, Berners-Lee don spend plenty of im recent time tackling wetin e see as structural flaw for how dem dey handle personal data for internet. Im response to this problem na Solid protocol, na open-source technical standard wey e develop am through Decentralized Information Group (DIG), wey e found for MIT CSAIL. Solid introduce capabilities wey never be part of the original web specification, including global single sign-on, universal access control, and data API wey allow any application store and retrieve data from any compatible storage location.

How Solid dey work for practice mostly center on wetin Berners-Lee describe as Data Wallets — secure, interoperable storage units wey dey keep person data together under person own control, instead make am scatter across proprietary platforms. Im argument for this kind architecture be say data fragmentation dey reduce im real value: when person health records, financial history, and social activity dey silo for different services, the connections between those data points no dey visible. For im own framing, bringing everything together inside one space wey person control, na where meaningful insight fit start become possible.

AI, Business Model Web, na Charlie

Berners-Lee don take this question serious: how generative AI go meet with the web economic foundation. For im speech wey e give at FT Future of AI Summit for November 2025, e raise concern say as big language models dey more and more synthesize and present information direct to users, less people go visit the websites wey generate that content. Since the web dominant business model depend on human eyeballs wey dey deliver advertising revenue, world wey AI intermediaries go consume content on behalf of users instead of directing them to sources create structural problem wey, according to im words, “need to be replaced with something else.”

E also note say the existing ad-based model still get im own cost. Highly targeted advertising fit make users feel say dem dey surveil them, and some don get tired for am. The disruption wey AI bring, even though e dey destabilize things, still open window for rethinking those arrangements. Im own venture, Inrupt, dey develop conversational AI product wey dem call Charlie. Charlie dey pull from user personal data wey dem store inside Solid-compatible data wallet, so e fit generate personalized responses, while e still give users clear control on which services fit access that information. The approach show one consistent design philosophy: AI wey draw from rich personal data fit be more useful, but only if the person wey that data belong to still get meaningful agency.

This Get for Everybody: Memoir na Ongoing Advocacy

For late 2025, Berners-Lee publish memoir wey dem title This Is for Everyone, na phrase wey e originally contribute for Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. The title capture the principle wey e don consistently talk say na the web animating purpose — na platform wey everybody fit access for knowledge and creativity, instead of infrastructure wey dem optimize for commercial extraction or power concentration. The book talk about the whole journey of how the web develop, including how e don move away from that original intention, and e argue for path wey go help recover the more democratic character of the web.

Im wider public commentary for this period don keep return to same theme: the web problems — platform concentration, data exploitation, and the erosion of the ad economy because of AI pressure — na design problems as e be regulatory ones. The Solid protocol and the work wey e do for Inrupt represent the response mode wey e prefer: technical standards wey go change the incentive structures wey underlay things, instead of relying only on policy intervention. Whether through academic work for MIT and Oxford, the standards development work for W3C, or the commercial push through Inrupt, this line of argument still remain the same across more than three decades wey e don engage with how the web really dey function.