How AI will eat your software - 3 ways agents are reshaping tomorrow's workplace (www.zdnet.com)

Boomi CEO Steve Lucas told ZDNET that AI “agents” will radically reshape enterprise software within a few years: thousands-to-billions of lightweight, task-focused agents will automate routine work, consume traditional applications as logical backends, and replace user logins with a conversational “experience layer” you interact with verbally, visually, or audibly. He gave concrete examples — spinning up an agent in 30 seconds to validate and clean addresses before data enters Boomi, or agents autonomously approving expense reports after checking calendars — to show how agents can subsume point tools and workflows many organizations use today. The shift matters because it reframes legacy apps (Salesforce, Workday, SAP) as systems of record rather than user-facing software and creates a new technical imperative: an AI activation layer that sits between conversational agents and backend systems. That layer must handle integration, data and workflow glue, and governance — areas where many firms currently struggle (MIT research shows 95% of enterprises aren’t seeing measurable AI returns). For architects and leaders, the headline is clear: invest in agentic development platforms, robust integration/APIs, and governance controls now, or risk losing control of processes and data as AI becomes the primary interface to enterprise systems.