Techno-optimists vs enterprise-incrementalists – why agent platforms encode very different futures

Over the last year, the AI industry has often felt like two entirely different markets. On one side are what I have branded the techno-optimists — autonomy-first players such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and a wave of AI-native startups promising transformational agents that can think, plan, and act on their own. On the other are the enterprise-incrementalists — established enterprise vendors building out agent capabilities on their existing deterministic foundations, deliberately downplaying autonomy and spontaneity in favor of safety and control.

Despite these differences in approach, the same terms are increasingly used by both sides — creating traps for enterprise buyers trying to make sense of where agents fit into their operating model strategy.

Enterprise-incrementalists and techno-optimists alike talk about outcomes rather than tasks, digital workers rather than workflows, and agency rather than automation. Demos and marketing narratives increasingly resemble one another. But this semantic convergence masks deeply different beliefs — different philosophies — about the ...