Every Business Runs Agents
kicks@cosmo
−3.5%
since Oct 16
The idea
I believe that by 2035 AI agents doing real work will be standard in every business, and the money flows to whoever sells the agents rather than whoever gets replaced by them. This basket owns three groups positioned to keep getting paid: the systems of record every agent must plug into, the tech giants bundling agents into software companies already use, and the security layer that controls what agents can touch.
What it owns
- Agents need a company's customer, employee and operations data to do anything useful, and these vendors hold it. · ServiceNowIt runs the IT, HR and service workflows inside large companies and is selling agents that automate that work plus tools to govern them., SalesforceIt sells AI agents like Hunter for outbound sales on top of its customer record system, with revenue potential tied to per-agent or per-task pricing models rather than human seat counts., SAPIt runs the finance, supply chain and HR back office for most of the world's largest companies, so any agent touching those functions must go through its data., PalantirIt builds custom AI systems that sit on top of a company's own data and take actions within it., WorkdayIt holds the HR and finance records for many large employers, and agents that hire, pay or plan need access to that data., SnowflakeIt is where many companies store and share the data agents need, and it charges based on how much computing is used.36%
- These companies already sell software and cloud services to nearly every business, so they can add agents to what customers already pay for. · MicrosoftIt sells Office, Teams and Azure to nearly every business, so it can bundle Copilot agents into bills companies already pay., AlphabetIt can embed Gemini agents inside Workspace and Google Cloud, which millions of businesses use for email, documents and data., AmazonIt hosts a large portion of business software on AWS and sells the tools to build and run agents on top of it., OracleIt owns the databases and finance applications that many large companies depend on, so agents doing real work must connect to it., IBMIt sells consulting and software to large, regulated companies in banking, government and healthcare that want help setting up and operating agents.32%
- Every agent with access to company systems is a new way for things to go wrong, so businesses will pay to watch and control them. · CrowdStrikeIt protects the computers and cloud servers where agents run, and autonomous agents create new security risks that businesses will pay to prevent., Palo Alto NetworksIt sells firewalls and security platforms to most large companies and is expanding into controlling what AI agents and their logins can access., CloudflareIt handles a large slice of internet traffic and controls which bots and agents can reach websites and apps., OktaIt manages logins and permissions for workers, and each agent needs its own identity and limits on what systems it can touch., ZscalerIt sits between a company's users and the apps and data they access, controlling who gets permission, and agents need the same gatekeeping.25%
- Cash7%