A method for using a robot on the web is disclosed. The method may include assigning a goal to a robot. The robot may then direct a web browser to code corresponding to a URL. Using the code, the web browser may render a webpage comprising a plurality of rendered elements. The robot may identify each rendered element by using OCR or an OCR equivalent or by positioning a virtual mouse in a plurality of locations on the webpage and obtaining, from the code, element-identification information corresponding to each location. The robot may map each rendered elements with an element type selected from a closed set of element types stored within a knowledge base accessible by the robot. The robot may further select, from a set of possible actions, an action corresponding to each rendered element that is most likely to lead toward the goal and implement each such action.