Why The Old Rules Of Enterprise Technology Don’t Apply To Agentic AI

Agentic AI is creating something much more significant than another generation of enterprise software. I believe we are seeing the emergence of a new technology and services category with a different architecture, economic model, pricing structure, talent model, and vendor ecosystem. The mistake enterprises and investors risk making is evaluating this new AI-native environment using the rules that govern the traditional technology stack.

Enterprise Technology is Splitting into Two

To understand why, we first need to recognize that AI is putting enterprises on two technology trajectories at the same time. As I’ve mentioned before, I do not believe AI will replace most of the existing enterprise technology stack for the foreseeable future.

Instead, AI will improve it. Companies can add agents to existing environments and maintain software more cost-effectively, as well as develop new functionality faster. Enterprises have spent decades and enormous amounts of money building these technology estates, and even if AI eventually makes code extraordinarily cheap to generate, that does not mean companies will replace these systems on masse.

At the same time, enterprises are beginning to create native agentic environments. These are not extensions of the traditional stack; they are fundamentally different. Traditional technology environments are built, whereas agentic environments are better thought of as being “grown”. Their ontologies and data structures can continually evolve. Digital twins can expand as they model changing environments. The fabric of agents operating above them is dynamic, with agents potentially being created and disappearing extremely quickly.

The Consequences of the Split

The Traditional Software and Services Divide

The Emerging Economic Model

A New View on Pricing

This also raises an important question: If these systems become so closely connected to how a business operates, will enterprises build and manage them themselves?