I spent much of last year discussing what an "AI-native company" really means, but most definitions felt slightly off. This year I realized why: AI-native is only a transition phase, while the real destination is an agentic business.
Some people use AI-native to mean workflow automation. Others use it while imagining a future agentic business. Some want AI to help human bottlenecks, while others want to remove those bottlenecks altogether. The term is carrying too wide a spectrum of intent.
Once I started using the phrase "agentic business" instead of "AI-native company," communication got easier. If we picture the future state first, we can make better choices about what kind of AI-native strategy actually makes sense in the present.