Tool
The layer that goes in the middle
Your system of record at the bottom, the agent on top, and in between the layer that joins them. Turn on what your system exposes today and see what that join is made of.
The join is made of a bridge that lifts now and then. It works without touching the system and without asking anybody in IT for anything.
What you give up: The agent works off an old snapshot. Between one export and the next it answers with data that already changed.
The model, in the open
The layer is drawn wider the more work has to sit in the middle, and in no case is the system of record touched. The order of the five cases and what each one gives up comes from our own integrations, not from a study.
How to read it
- The system of record never moves in the drawing. The only thing that changes is what the pipe is made of, and that is what decides whether the project takes two weeks or two months.
- Turn on the scheduled export alone, which is the most common case: the agent starts answering off an old snapshot, and that is the cost nobody quotes at the start.
- Turn all four off. You can still start, and there the honest word is coexisting, not integrating.
This object is the interactive half of an article: Why an AI agent doesn't have to replace the system you already run