1. The Age of Autonomous Software
The dominant story in enterprise tech for 2025 is the rapid shift from “copilot” chatbots to fully agentic systems able to plan, take decisions, and trigger real‑world actions on our behalf. Analyst surveys show that 82 % of large organisations intend to put such agents into production by 2026, up from barely 15 % two years ago . TIME’s annual outlook likewise names agentic AI the first of its five defining AI trends for the year .
2. Why the Inflection Point Is Now
Four forces have converged:
| Catalyst | What changed in 2024‑25 | Impact in 2025 |
| Cheaper, smarter models | GPT‑4‑family, Claude 3.5 and Gemini 2.5 sliced inference cost/1k tokens by 70 % while adding stable tool‑calling. | Autonomy becomes affordable for mid‑market firms. |
| Tool‑calling frameworks | LangChain LangGraph & OpenAI Function Calling reached v1.0 maturity. | Developers can orchestrate actions reliably. |
| Enterprise appetite | Capgemini reports 35 % average efficiency gains in early pilots. | Boards now ask when, not if, to deploy. |
| Regulatory clarity | The EU AI Act’s tiered‑risk timeline entered force on 2 Feb 2025, giving businesses a roadmap for compliance . | Legal risk no longer a blocker. |
3. Where the Value Lies — Think Vertical
Generic assistants are giving way to workflow‑native, industry‑specific agents:
- Claims Concierge for insurers, closing FNOL to payout in minutes
- S&OP Orchestrator in manufacturing, coordinating demand sensing, inventory, and logistics
- Clinical Coding Agent that auto‑generates ICD‑11 codes and audits for HIPAA compliance
LinkedIn pulse data pegs the vertical‑agent market at a 43.8 % CAGR, reaching ≈ $197 bn by 2034 . For founders, the TAM is no longer “feature X” but the fully‑loaded salary of the team the agent replaces.
4. Talent: Rise of the Agent Engineer
Job boards now list “Agent Engineer (LangChain)” roles with salaries up to $175 k in the US mid‑market . Andrew Ng calls them “the new breed of GenAI application engineers” and advises recruiters to probe for strength in prompting, evals, guardrails, and RAG, not just traditional coding .
Skill stack checklist
| Layer | Must‑have skills | Typical tools |
| Prompt craft | 6‑slot template (Role, Task, Input, Output, Constraints, Reminders) | Playground, GPT‑4o |
| Tool orchestration | Function specs, async retries, memory design | LangChain, LangGraph |
| Eval‑first QA | LLM‑as‑judge, regression harness, bias checks | LangSmith, TruLens |
| Governance | Policy routing, red‑teaming, logging | Guardrails, OpenTelemetry |
5. Build Methodology: O‑D‑M‑P‑E
Teams that ship fastest follow a five‑step loop:
- Observe a real user performing the job.
- Decompose the workflow into atomic decisions.
- Map each step to data and tool calls.
- Prototype a narrow slice end‑to‑end.
- Evaluate & Iterate daily with automated evals (start with two: “happy path” and “edge case”).
Ng stresses that evals should evolve as rapidly as the model itself; start rough and refine continuously .
6. One‑Hour Proof‑of‑Value Sprint
| Minute | Action | Output |
| 0‑10 | Capture the current human click‑path. | Annotated flowchart |
| 10‑20 | Define the “perfect” end artefact. | Gold‑standard examples |
| 20‑30 | Draft first prompt with 6‑slot template. | v0 prompt |
| 30‑40 | Wire a minimal agent calling one live API. | Running script |
| 40‑50 | Add 2 automated evals. | Pass/fail metrics |
| 50‑60 | Run, inspect logs, decide next tweak. | Iteration backlog |
Even if the prototype is rough, teams leave the hour with a working skeleton and a living eval harness—exactly what exec sponsors want to see.
7. Key Trends to Track Next
| Trend | Signal | Strategic move |
| Voice & multimodal agents | Google’s Project Astra‑based “Gemini Live” now ships to Android & iOS . | Benchmark latency of speech I/O early. |
| Browser‑native “computer‑use” agents | Project Mariner exposes DOM‑action APIs to devs this summer . | Train agents on your UI test suite. |
| Multi‑agent orchestration | Research prototypes show supervisor‑worker panels outperform single agents on complex reasoning . | Pilot manager/worker patterns rather than monoliths. |
| Eval‑first culture | Ng’s “iterate on evals” mantra gaining traction . | Allocate 5 % of sprint capacity to growing eval coverage. |
| Market acceleration | 25 % of GenAI‑using firms will launch agent pilots this year, says Deloitte . | Secure budget before valuations jump again. |
8. Compliance & Trust
From Feb 2025, deploying an autonomous agent that touches users in the EU invokes at least transparency duties under the AI Act, with stricter controls if the workflow is classed “high risk.” Keep prompt logs, user override counters, and eval scores—they are your first‑line evidence for regulators .
9. The Road Ahead
Autonomous agents will not replace every SaaS category overnight, but in vertical after vertical they are erasing the line between software and the people who run it. Teams that combine deep domain knowledge with the new discipline of agent engineering will define the next wave of category leaders.
Call to action: ThorstenMeyerAI.com will publish a monthly Agentic Radar tracking real‑world deployments, eval frameworks, and regulatory updates. Subscribe to stay two steps ahead of the curve.
— Thorsten Meyer, June 24 2025
