Satya Nadella's token capital argument is self-serving for Microsoft: if the frontier model is not the whole game, the enterprise platform becomes the battleground. But the underlying point is right: companies need owned learning loops, not rented intelligence.

Every major AI player has converged on the same answer for landing agents in real businesses: Forward Deployed Engineers. Most firms can't solve it by hiring (no headcount) or by buying SaaS (no context). The way through is the FDE function as software — a supervised loop that turns work into agents on a workspace that compounds context, so each integration makes the next one easier.

Automation has entered its third era. Scripts gave way to no-code platforms, and now AI agents that plan, execute, and learn are replacing human-in-the-loop workflows. Here's what changes — and why the teams that adopt this now will have a compounding advantage.

Learn how to evolve from tactical AI experiments to strategic business transformation. This article outlines a maturity model for agentic AI adoption and provides a roadmap for building a comprehensive AI strategy aligned with business objectives.