The idea that railroads made governance the performance driver makes a lot of sense.
I see the same thing in companies too. Teams celebrate silo productivity, deploy agents into claims, finance, or marketing, and then wonder why the system still jams. Execution gets faster. Coordination does not get smarter.
The real work is to treat governance as a product. Who sets the guardrails for agents, what data contracts bind functions, how exceptions escalate, which decision rights move to the edge.
Leaders often say they have no time to think long-term. That is the wrong excuse. You create time by removing constraints. It is a coordination problem that needs the most attention.
Thank you again for sharing such important insights!
Thanks! I'm glad it worked. Some of the most risky analogies (previous ones include the sommelier analogy and the fugu analogy) have often been the most memorable for readers.
I agree - the more horizontal the use case, the more challenging this is. For something like Asana or Notion, the real challenge is that every workflow running on the tool is different based on the domain. This is precisely where I feel agentic workflows will have to be more domain-led rather than completely horizontal. Horizzontal players will be stuck to task automation enabling new competition from vertical agentic players who uinderstand the workflow more deeply but within the limitations of SAAS weren't quite superior enough to their horizontal counterparts.
Great article and it calls to mind the book Art of Action that looks at how organizations can translate strategy to execution. It emphasizes the concept of friction where bureaucracy impedes that process. As you describe agentic AI as a coordination opportunity it made me think the really successful implementations will address that friction to enable organizations to more effectively coordinate activity around their objectives while responding/anticipating/adapting to their competitive marketplace and environment, anchored in that objective. That will be a true game changer. Not just ordering faster but knowing when to order or whether to order at all.
The only reason for companies to use RPA was that the underlying applications was so old and cumbersome, but they didn't want to invest in replacing them. So they built an RPA on top (to all developers frustration). With AI, companies can solve their Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) by developing/replacing/improving these applications and the need for RPA vapors.
Anthropic just released Claude Agent SDK ("a supervisor agent that builds and manage agents"). In the release they said that the Agents often did a better job if they where not dictated by a process, but could get some autonomy to solve the task. The context, the orchestration management and the governance is paramount.
Love this framing, Sangeet.
The idea that railroads made governance the performance driver makes a lot of sense.
I see the same thing in companies too. Teams celebrate silo productivity, deploy agents into claims, finance, or marketing, and then wonder why the system still jams. Execution gets faster. Coordination does not get smarter.
The real work is to treat governance as a product. Who sets the guardrails for agents, what data contracts bind functions, how exceptions escalate, which decision rights move to the edge.
Leaders often say they have no time to think long-term. That is the wrong excuse. You create time by removing constraints. It is a coordination problem that needs the most attention.
Thank you again for sharing such important insights!
Brilliant analogy Sangeet 💪💪💪
Thanks! I'm glad it worked. Some of the most risky analogies (previous ones include the sommelier analogy and the fugu analogy) have often been the most memorable for readers.
Beautiful, beautiful post. Thanks, Sangeet 🙏
Thanks
Spot on insights. Note the same holds for the ‘risk innovation’ side of that coin:
https://open.substack.com/pub/erinkenneally/p/ai-risk-insurance-ransomware-redux?r=18syap&utm_medium=ios
Amazing article Sangeet, thanks for sharing
Thanks Paul!
Loved this line, “Those who clung to the mindset of canals missed the real value of railroads.”
Ties directly to - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shailkhiyara_sundayspark-activity-7380606443357597696-p0Ze?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAAI0qsBpxphE2KG_1m9XtczLVREYS_DN5U
Wow. This shows the true potential of AI. Cant believe what I just read. Will look fwd to more such reads :)
https://substack.com/@mrjamesgreen 👋🙂
There are many problems - the biggest one being hallucination
Hi Sangeet,
I really liked this article and am thinking along these lines as someone who built a PM tool like Asana.
However, given how horizontal the usecase is, I find it hard to narrow down on a workflow and then to think about it through the agentic lens.
It feels like one would have to first narrow to a vertical, losing all other revenue source and then go about redesigning the workflow from scratch.
Is there a better route?
I agree - the more horizontal the use case, the more challenging this is. For something like Asana or Notion, the real challenge is that every workflow running on the tool is different based on the domain. This is precisely where I feel agentic workflows will have to be more domain-led rather than completely horizontal. Horizzontal players will be stuck to task automation enabling new competition from vertical agentic players who uinderstand the workflow more deeply but within the limitations of SAAS weren't quite superior enough to their horizontal counterparts.
Great article and it calls to mind the book Art of Action that looks at how organizations can translate strategy to execution. It emphasizes the concept of friction where bureaucracy impedes that process. As you describe agentic AI as a coordination opportunity it made me think the really successful implementations will address that friction to enable organizations to more effectively coordinate activity around their objectives while responding/anticipating/adapting to their competitive marketplace and environment, anchored in that objective. That will be a true game changer. Not just ordering faster but knowing when to order or whether to order at all.
Thanks for this amazing article, Sangeeta. Systems Thinking is the way to go. Just completed Reshuffle book. Loved it.
Very insightful. Thank you for sharing 🙏🏽
This was a great read to start my day, thanks Sangeet
Love this! Canals and railways great storytelling
When reading this post I started thinking about the classic HBR article "Reengineering work: Don't automate, obliterate (https://hbr.org/1990/07/reengineering-work-dont-automate-obliterate).
The only reason for companies to use RPA was that the underlying applications was so old and cumbersome, but they didn't want to invest in replacing them. So they built an RPA on top (to all developers frustration). With AI, companies can solve their Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) by developing/replacing/improving these applications and the need for RPA vapors.
Anthropic just released Claude Agent SDK ("a supervisor agent that builds and manage agents"). In the release they said that the Agents often did a better job if they where not dictated by a process, but could get some autonomy to solve the task. The context, the orchestration management and the governance is paramount.