We are in the most comfortable "normal technology" phase of AI for enterprise: it enables productivity gains, but still needs integration into workflows - stuff we have seen before!
Yet it is very possible that this is a waypoint, not a stable phase. AIs may integrate themselves
Many users worry the comfortable enterprise AI productivity phase is risky and temporary because companies risk disruption or being unprepared when AI integrates autonomously, while a few see opportunities for productivity gains.
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I wrote about this a year ago: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-bitter-lesson-versus-the-garbage
We are in the most comfortable "normal technology" phase of AI for enterprise: it enables productivity gains, but still needs integration into workflows - stuff we have seen before!
Yet it is very possible that this is a waypoint, not a stable phase. AIs may integrate themselves
The "comfortable" framing is what worries me actually. MIT NANDA clocked 95% of enterprise GenAI pilots at zero measurable P&L impact. And the METR study is the real gut punch: experienced developers were 19% slower on real tasks using AI tools while self-reporting they were 20% faster. That's a 39 point perception gap. The problem isn't workflow integration. It's that companies think they're adopting while the numbers say otherwise. The firms that get past the waypoint aren't the ones with better tools. They're the ones that took the resistance layer seriously first, as a design problem, not a training problem. Built an open-source framework specifically around this, including a mandatory governance gate before any "AI replaces human" decision executes. The Klarna case is encoded into it as a blocking test, not a case study.
@emollick Yup. And integration and orchestration isn't as simple as people make it out to be. This is the opportunity.
@emollick The transition from integration to autonomous agents depends on the shift from LLM reasoning to long-term memory and reliable tool use.
@emollick We wouldn't need Microsoft ecosystem by then
I think this becomes especially risky if it coincides with frontier work moving more behind closed doors.
The public may experience a comfortable “normal technology” phase, while capabilities keep compounding internally. That gap could make society systematically underestimate the speed/scale of what'scoming.
@emollick I actually think Fable/Mythos could integrate itself into most workflows given the proper permissions. It’s a shame we are going to have to wait to find out now
@emollick Two limiting factors in my mind: 1) Voice +/- Avatar is too expensive for an hour-long onboarding meeting, in a more natural way you'd onboard a new employee 2) Computer Use / mature Claw-type agents being good/cheap enough to be the main glue across access points & tasks
@emollick The tool will transition into becoming the employee soon enough, and thats what society is unprepared for
@emollick 这也是企业 AI 的资本链分水岭：如果 AI 还需要人把它嵌入流程，价值更多在系统集成、权限、数据治理和审计；如果 AI 开始自我集成，价值会从 SaaS seat 转向可调用的 workflow/agent runtime。看点不是 demo，而是谁掌握企业反馈闭环。
@emollick the comfortable part is usually the tell
@emollick No technology will ever solve the problem of deciding how to spend your finite life.
@emollick The next phase gets interesting when AI stops waiting to be invoked and starts noticing the work changing.
That’s also where trust and behavior change get much harder.
@emollick the plug-and-play dream always hits a wall before the next leap
if ai starts building its own integrations, the whole job description shifts
@emollick good opportunity for companies to resurrect their six sigma dinosaurs (i am one of them in a former life) and put them to work alongside those engineering agentic solutions
they know the business and the processes, and how to articulate them, better than any other employee
@emollick Maybe "who integrates whom" is the wrong frame. We don't use AI the way we used past machines — we coexist with it. The integration isn't coming; it's already happening in the interaction. What it needs from us is trust, not more wiring.
@emollick As an Annales School believer, I hold that every productivity leap forces society and firms to reorganize—sometimes at the cost of blood and fire. That’s why AI-era management breakthroughs could be a future Nobel hot pick.
@emollick The next phase will be the accelerated phase
@emollick We still need to build specifically trained AIs for certain industries. I work in eyewear and we are still trying to figure out how to best use AI.
@emollick AI won’t replace the workflow, it’ll just become it. Same way spreadsheets didn’t replace finance, they just became how finance works.