Please find Sapphire Ventures’ latest Market Memo: Agents – Towards an Autonomous Future .

This month, we explore how AI Agents are evolving from early hype into real-world deployment, unlocking a new software paradigm defined by autonomy, execution, and scale.

Here’s a preview:

• A new software model: Agents act as “digital workers,” shifting users from operators to delegators.
• Massive market opportunity: Agents extend beyond software into trillions in services and labor spend.
• Early but accelerating adoption: Strong traction in coding, support, and research, with broader uptake ahead.
• Rapid capability gains: Better models, lower costs, and improved infrastructure are driving progress.
• Value shifting to orchestration: The “Agent harness” is emerging as the key source of differentiation.
• Ecosystem expansion: Startups and incumbents are racing across infrastructure and application layers.