Generative AI Fundamentals Map

Map/Agents and organisations/Wave 7

Knowledge-rich agents

Agents that carry company and personal context across sessions and people.

stageEmerging Open on the map →

Facts

Lane: Agents and organisations
Wave: 7 of 12 (build order, not a date)
Needs: 16 boxes all the way back through hard links
Unlocks: 3 boxes downstream through hard links
Leverage: 0.4 points · stands in the way of 3 of 53 stages · rank 23 of 57
Cluster: Agents at work
When: Researcher estimate: 2026 to 2029

Evidence as of October 2026

The MIT NANDA report blames most stalled enterprise pilots on a "learning gap": tools that cannot keep feedback or absorb a company’s own processes.

Watch
Repeat-error rate inside one company. Share of answers grounded in company data.

Timeline note
My estimate. Memory and connectors are shipping now, but reliable company-wide use is not yet common.

01Why 95% of AI pilots fail, on the MIT NANDA report (VC Cafe)

Around it

Needs · 7

Long-horizon agentsstage · Built today
Persistent memorycapability · Emerging
Company data connectorscapability · Built today
Shared ontology and wikicapability · Emerging · helps, not required
Skillscapability · Emerging · helps, not required
Always-on background agentsstage · Emerging · helps, not required
Firm-owned post-trained modelscapability · Emerging · helps, not required

Unlocks · 1

Continual-learning agentsstage · Emerging

Loops and off-ramps

Company knowledge loopreinforcing loop
Capex pullbackoff-ramp · cut off
Taiwan chip disruptionoff-ramp · cut off
Power shortfalloff-ramp · cut off
Capability plateauoff-ramp · cut off
Training data ruled outoff-ramp · slowed
Misuse catastropheoff-ramp · slowed

Openings researchers' judgement, October 2026 scouting

Startup room 40/100 · rank 60 of 124 Research room 35/100 · rank 101 of 124

Crowding5 Lab overlap5 Small-team fit2 Buyer today4 Research openness3

Depth: deep
Players: Glean ($300m ARR); Microsoft Copilot (30M+ seats); Atlassian Rovo; Notion; OpenAI Frontier; Dust ($40m B); Interloom ($16.5m)
Wedge: Cross-system adjudication (which source wins when systems disagree, who may supersede a fact) or vertical knowledge agents in regulated case work, the Interloom pattern. startup