Bret Taylor, co-founder and CEO of Sierra — the enterprise AI startup building next-generation customer service agents — believes we are standing at the threshold of a fundamental transformation in how humans interact with software. And unlike many bold predictions in tech, this one already has receipts.
Speaking at the HumanX AI conference in San Francisco, Taylor outlined his vision: a future where users no longer need to click through complex enterprise interfaces. Instead, they’ll simply describe what they need in natural language, and an AI agent will handle the rest.
Introducing Ghostwriter: The Agent That Builds Agents
Last month, Sierra unveiled Ghostwriter, a groundbreaking “agent as a service” tool that automates the creation and deployment of specialized AI agents. Rather than requiring engineers to build custom software for every use case, Ghostwriter allows users to describe a business need in plain language — and the system autonomously creates a purpose-built agent to execute it.
Taylor’s argument is compelling: most enterprise software is deeply underutilized. Employees log into complex systems only occasionally — for onboarding or annual enrollment — and spend most of their time navigating unfamiliar interfaces. Ghostwriter and systems like it could eliminate that friction entirely, replacing software navigation with simple conversational prompts.
Proven Results at Scale
Sierra isn’t just theorizing about the future — they’re already delivering results. Taylor shared that his company deployed a custom AI agent for Nordstrom in just four weeks, a timeline that would have been unimaginable with traditional software development cycles.
The company’s momentum speaks for itself. Sierra reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue less than 21 months after founding and was valued at $10 billion following a $350 million funding round led by Greenoaks Capital in September. These figures reflect enormous enterprise demand for intelligent, conversational AI solutions that actually work in production.
The Bigger Picture: Business Without Buttons
Taylor’s core insight is that most companies don’t want to build or maintain software — they want solutions to their problems. As AI agents become more capable and reliable, the very concept of a “software interface” may become obsolete for many business workflows.
For Taylor, this isn’t a distant forecast. It’s a transition already underway — one that Sierra is actively accelerating, one deployed agent at a time.
