Asking AI to build scrapers should be easy right?

Skyvern, an open-source browser automation tool, has developed the ability to write and maintain its own code, making AI-powered web scraping 2.7x cheaper and 2.3x faster. The system works in two phases: "explore mode" where an AI agent learns to navigate a website and generates metadata about the process, then "replay mode" where it compiles those learnings into deterministic Playwright code that runs without requiring expensive LLM calls on every execution.