The Mesh Has You: Why McKinsey and Top Firms Are Betting on AI's Next Wave

In The Matrix's iconic opening scene, Neo sees "The Matrix Has You" on his computer screen, revealing a hidden digital reality. Today, enterprises are experiencing a similar awakening as Microsoft Copilot Studio and Salesforce Agentforce 2.0 unveil the next evolution of AI: the Agentic Mesh. Using Copilot Studio, McKinsey demonstrated how an Engagement Management Agent was reducing lead time by 90% and administrative work by 30%. And Accenture showed how Agentforce transformed their teams work in Slack to go way beyond CRM automation for their 774k workforce.

From Isolated AI to Connected Intelligence

Several AI generations ago at Stanford, while pursuing my Master's in Smart Product Design, I co-founded a startup focused on AI for manufacturing. We convinced Apple and HP to fund an expert system that would help engineers collaborate with AI to optimize designs for automated assembly. While primitive by today's standards, that early work revealed something fundamental: AI systems become transformative when they collaborate.

Fast forward to late 2024, and Eric Broda's recent seminal paper on Agentic Mesh frameworks represents a quantum leap in this direction. Just as "Attention Is All You Need" birthed modern language models in 2017, Broda's framework could mark an equally significant inflection point. His paper starts with a great timeline showing where we came from and where it is likely headed with Multi-Agents leading to Communities and Organizations. And the AI equivalent of DNS registeries and API standards appearing like they did to support Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 ecosystems.

The Enterprise Wave

The timing couldn't be more telling. Within weeks around, Broda's paper:

• Microsoft unveiled multi-agent capabilities in Copilot Studio
• Amazon-backed Anthropic announced autonomous computer control
• Salesforce launched Agentforce 2.0

But while tech giants race for general-purpose dominance, the real revolution is happening in specialized markets. The chart below shows how, while the tech giants will likely dominate the Generalized Multi-Agent space on the right of this chart, the left Specialized space will likely be up for grabs for the many AI-First startups that can disrupt the Vertical SaaS predecessors. An example on the left is a HealthTech innovator, Hygia Health a company that is building upon general and specialized LLMs like Hippocratic AI to a next generation swarm of healthcare agents to unify that very fragmented vertical.

Healthcare's Agent Revolution

Consider healthcare's fragmented landscape:

• ZocDoc owns 40% of doctor search
• Teladoc handles 50 million visits
• Ada serves 50 million symptom-checking users
• MyChart connects 190 million patients

Each operates in its silo, creating a disjointed patient experience. Enter Hygia Healthcare with a revolutionary approach using Agentic Mesh. Their Orchestrator LLM acts like a conductor, bringing specialized agents in and out of patient conversations as needed.

A patient journey now flows seamlessly:

1. Symptom analysis agents evaluate initial concerns
2. Medical record agents provide historical context
3. Routing agents direct to urgent care or scheduling
4. Pharmacy agents check medication interactions
5. Care management agents ensure proper follow-up

The Implementation Journey

Leading organizations are following a clear path:

Foundation: Build agent capabilities, prioritize use cases, and establish security frameworks.
Time investment: 3-6 months.

Pilot: Deploy in select departments, measure performance, optimize processes.
Time investment: 6-9 months.

Scale: Integrate across departments, implement advanced analytics, and measure ROI.
Time investment: 9-12 months.

2025: The Year of the Mesh

Looking ahead, three trends emerge:

1. Competitive advantage shifts from owning AI to orchestrating agents
2. Industry-specific solutions outperform general-purpose AI
3. Human-AI collaborative teams become the norm

The Path Forward

Reflecting on our Stanford startup's manufacturing AI, I imagine how different it would be today. Instead of one expert system, we'd deploy specialized agents for materials, assembly sequencing, cost analysis, and supply chain planning. What took months could emerge through collaborative intelligence in days.

Just as the internet revolutionized information exchange, the Agentic Mesh is creating a network of connected intelligence. For businesses, it offers unprecedented access to modular AI capabilities. For developers, it provides a scalable framework for innovation. For society, it unlocks new possibilities for solving complex challenges.

The future isn't about smarter individual agents—it's about creating systems that enable them to work together in ways we're only beginning to imagine.