This is exactly right. We run an integration practice and the pattern is clear: the companies that get the most value from automation are the ones where someone deeply understands their specific business processes, their edge cases, and how their systems actually talk to each other.
The “forward deployed engineer” role isn’t new in our world. We’ve always had to understand how a client’s operations actually work before we can wire anything up. What’s changing is that now the technology itself needs that same context to function. Agents don’t just move data, they need to understand what “correct” looks like for each business.
The flywheel you describe (learn across customers, identify patterns, build back into product) is the entire thesis for why domain-specialized service companies are uniquely positioned to build in this space. You can’t shortcut the reps.
@JayaGup10 The next winners in enterprise software will not replace systems of record. They will sit in the execution path above them, capture the decisions made across them, and turn operational judgment into a compounding asset.