The deployment layer for AI

Aaron LevieOct 2, 2026

There's a huge opportunity right now in being the deployment layer for AI into the economy. The amount of work it takes to change out workflows in enterprises tends to be far greater than anyone realizes or would prefer. Clearly this is what the applied layer of AI is going to look like in the form of software and agents, but also it opens up new services firms opportunities. Legacy systems need to be moved to the cloud, data organization and access needs to be updated, software needs to be connected to agents in new ways, workflows need to be reengineered for agents, HITL needs to be figured out for the process, evals need to be generated and maintained, and the entire system needs to be continually updated as new models get released and new capabilities emerge. And the full list may even be longer. AI is not the same as just deploying software. Software you generally did the implementation of an existing, well understood category of technology, then stepped back and the customer kept running. With AI agents, you're delivering actual work augmentation to the organization, which has a completely different set of complexities associated with it. You're no longer deploying tools that the company is merely enabled by, you're deploying work output in a process. Completely different implementation and enablement process. As a result, this is going to open up lots of new kinds of firms and plays for existing firms to diffuse AI into organizations. We're going to see approaches by industry, by size of company, and by problem inside of companies. Traditional SIs will modernize and adapt (some will clearly not adapt as well), and new entrants will also be founded in this period that take advantage of this window. Great time to be an FDE or FDE firm.