In this moment, excerpted from his keynote, Microsoft’s James Oleinik outlined a major shift in enterprise software — from app-centric workflows to agent-centric systems — and what it means for how work gets done.
Key Takeaways
App-Centric Work is Reaching its Limits: For decades, enterprise software has required humans to open applications, fill forms, and manually move workflows forward. This model has created fragmented work across multiple tools and tabs.
Work is Shifting From Apps to Intent: The emerging model replaces navigation of applications with expression of intent. Users stay in one environment while AI agents execute tasks across systems and data in the background.
Agents Become the Execution Layer: AI agents are increasingly acting as operators of workflows, coordinating processes across enterprise systems. This shift is not incremental — it represents a platform-level change comparable to the move from on-prem to cloud computing.
