Field Notes on the Agentic Enterprise
AI generates. Then it decides, acts, and transacts. Six essays on what enterprises must build when software stops suggesting and starts doing.
For two years the conversation has been about what AI can produce. That era is ending — not because generation stopped mattering, but because it stopped being scarce. The next era is about what AI is allowed to do, and how anyone proves it: authority, verification, accountability, evidence.
These essays are field notes from that transition, written from twenty‑five years of building enterprise revenue and from hands‑on work on authorization and decision evidence. They share one through‑line: trust is becoming infrastructure.
The series
The Agentic Economy Runs on Authority
Agents that act are agents that spend trust. Who granted it, what exactly was granted, and can you prove every action matched intent?
Software Sold Seats. Cloud Sold Consumption. AI Will Sell Outcomes.
When the unit of value becomes a completed outcome, pricing changes — and outcome pricing demands outcome accountability.
Verification Is the New Bottleneck in Enterprise AI
Production is no longer scarce. When machines produce faster than humans can review, verification becomes the constraint — and the market.
AI Doesn’t Fix Operational Debt. It Compounds It.
AI applied to a broken process industrializes the broken process. Data, workflow, accountability, authority, evidence — then scale.
When AI Agents Manage Your Money, Who Controls the Agent?
Deposits that move themselves change banking. Win the customer once — then win the customer’s agent every single day.
Trust Is Becoming Infrastructure for the AI Economy
Identity, authorization, governance, provenance, assurance — the trust stack stops being compliance and becomes production architecture.
The Operator Edition
Part two of Field Notes on the Agentic Enterprise: the practical layer under the six essays — one control, one template, one measure at a time.
The Agent Inventory: The First Control Every Board Will Ask For
Eleven fields, thirty days to a first complete list, and the three feeds that keep it alive.
Write the Mandate: A One-Page Template for Delegating Authority to an Agent
Scope, limits, velocity, window, escalation, revocation, evidence — on one page.
The Three Measures: An AI ROI Scorecard That Survives the J-Curve
Inputs, outcomes, organization — run simultaneously, so a good program is not cancelled at the bottom of the dip.
How to Measure a CRO in the AI Age: The Three Measures for the Revenue Organization
The Three Measures applied to the revenue organization itself — and the eight numbers a board should ask a CRO for before next year’s plan.
The questions this series keeps asking
Eight questions run underneath all six essays — the ones I put to any AI initiative before the capability conversation is allowed to start:
- 01PurposeWhat outcome matters, and what baseline proves improvement?
- 02OwnershipWho remains accountable for value, risk, and continued authority?
- 03AuthorityWho — or what — may act, on whose behalf, on which data, within which limits?
- 04EvidenceWhat demonstrates that the system, decision, or claim is reliable and defensible?
- 05ChangeWhich events are material enough to require reassessment, restriction, or suspension?
- 06EconomicsWhat is the total cost per completed and verified outcome?
- 07ScaleWhich operating model, skills, controls, and feedback loops make the result repeatable?
- 08TrustCan customers, employees, boards, and regulators understand and rely on the system?
Prefer to read the whole series offline? Download the field guide (PDF) — all six essays, the eight questions, and the sources in one document.
Start here
The Agentic Economy Runs on Authority
The opening argument: intelligence is becoming abundant, and authority is becoming the constraint.
Read the essay »Field Notes on Go‑to‑Market
Building enduring revenue: ICP, pipeline creation, deal acceleration, and the operating discipline behind it.
Browse the GTM library »New essays and operator tools, as they publish.
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