By Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

Copyright observer

A.I. agents are the next big platform shift in tech, on par with the dawn of the internet 30 years ago and the rise of mobile apps a decade ago, according to OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor, who also runs his own A.I. startup, Sierra. Speaking at the Skift Global Forum in New York City yesterday (Sept. 18), the tech executive argued that enterprises are now racing to adopt A.I. agents much like they once scrambled to build websites or launch mobile apps.

“I think this is an opportunity that, probably, the closest catalog would be the birth of the internet,” Taylor said during an onstage interview.

Taylor has seen several waves of disruption firsthand. At Google in the early 2000s, he helped launch Google Maps. He went on to serve as chief technology officer at Facebook (now Meta), co-CEO of Salesforce, and chair of Twitter’s board during Elon Musk’s tumultuous takeover. In 2023, he was tapped as chairman of OpenAI’s board after the ChatGPT-maker briefly ousted and reinstated CEO Sam Altman.

Now, his focus is on Sierra, the conversational A.I. startup he co-founded two years ago with former Google colleague Clay Bavor. The company has quickly become a “decacorn,” hitting a $10 billion valuation earlier this month after raising $350 million from Greenoaks Capital. Sierra already counts hundreds of enterprise customers across financial services, health care and retail. A fifth of Sierra’s customers have annual revenue over $10 billion.

Taylor insists that A.I. agents are more than just cost-cutting tools. Increasingly, they’re revenue drivers. Sierra’s platform is helping companies sell mortgages, make outbound sales calls and even manage payroll for small businesses. “These agents are not only doing services, but also doing sales,” he said.

And the form factor is evolving. While chatbots dominate today’s landscape, Taylor believes voice-enabled A.I. is “as, or more important, of a channel than chat.” Multi-modal agents are also emerging. For instance, retailers are beginning to process warranty claims by analyzing photos of damaged products.

Just as the internet gave rise to search engines and aggregation platforms, Taylor expects agentic A.I. to spawn entirely new business categories. The challenge will be ensuring that they meet consumer expectations as their desires inevitably evolve with the technology’s development. “Consumers are moving faster than most companies can make decisions,” Taylor warned, noting that ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app in history. “It’s on all of us leaders to push decisively towards this new world.”