Bloomberg: “Welcome to the era of the zombie unicorn. There are a record 1,200 venture-backed unicorns that have yet to go public or get acquired, according to CB Insights, a researcher that tracks the venture capital industry. Startups that raised large sums of money are beginning to take desperate measures. Startups in later stages are in a particularly difficult position, because they generally need more money to operate—and the investors who’d write checks at billion-dollar-plus valuations have gotten more selective. For some, accepting unfavorable fundraising terms or selling at a steep discount are the only ways to avoid collapsing completely, leaving behind nothing but a unicorpse.”
McKinsey: “Our team sought to understand how successful B2B sales organizations use technology for greater accuracy and speed. We spoke with more than 70 commercial leaders around the world to uncover how they propel above-market, sustainable growth trajectories. We found that they use tech and data to get a more precise view of opportunities, eliminate time wasted on low-yield initiatives, empower sales teams with better information for nuanced decision-making, and optimize resources, pitches, and pricing. Doing all this can help growth leaders get in front of industry trends, high-growth markets, and specific customer opportunities before their peers.”
Abhishek Asthana: “A side-lower berth in a long-distance train is the best place to see India. It gives a 55-inch panoramic view of the hinterland, a charging point, and ample space to stretch your legs, but not enough to sleep well.”
Salesforce: “Operationally, companies will change how work gets done, offloading complex repetitive tasks to agents so human employees can focus on higher-priority matters. For example, for most companies, service reps have to answer frequently asked questions, process refunds, and troubleshoot technology issues. AI agents can take on the majority of these routine tasks and workflows, changing the role of a human service rep to handle only the most complex cases, or supporting teams training and refining the AI models to improve accuracy and responses. This will shift human work from execution to creative strategy and oversight. AI agents aren’t just tools people will use occasionally; they will be integral collaborators in this new way of working. For example, an AI agent might handle an initial customer service inquiry, but upon sensing frustration in the customer, flag it to a human agent for a personalized response or intervention. Afterward, the service representative would provide feedback on how the AI agent handled the case, helping the AI improve over time and reducing the need for human intervention on similar cases.”
VentureBeat: “AI agents are poised to transform how we work, but there’s a critical challenge ahead: getting them to work together effectively at massive scale. As organizations deploy thousands of AI agents across their operations, the need for a new kind of internet — the Internet of Agents (IoA) — has become increasingly urgent, says Vijoy Pandey, SVP of Outshift by Cisco. “You’ll have agents sitting within all software, whether it’s business software, personal software, avatars on the social network or embodied AI sitting inside robotic entities and doing physical work,” Pandey says. “In the B2B context, all SaaS in the future is going to have multiple agents within it, agentic software from different providers coming together to talk to each other to solve a business outcome.” But doing that at scale is the central challenge, he says. It’s not just about the number of agents — an average-size organization will soon deploy upwards of 20,000 agents, and an enterprise could be handling hundreds of thousands. It’s about enabling them to communicate and interact effectively across vendor boundaries, security domains and profiles. This is why we need the Internet of Agents: an open, interoperable internet that will revolutionize how agents collaborate in a quantum safe way.”
