Donato Riccio

So the short answer is that I think it matches.

And we are currently in a healthier place compared to just six or nine months ago.

Because at the beginning of 2025, as many others have started worrying about, is it a bubble?

But the main indicator I monitor is pretty simple.

So are people's expectations connected to how the technology actually works?

Because when the expectations disconnect from the fundamentals, that's when you get the bubble, right?

So early last year, I saw this starting to go sideways because people were getting more and more excited about agents, which are that are able to perform more complex actions and go beyond just answering questions such as booking your flight or creating an act or managing your calendar.

So many people started calling 2025 the year of agents, but I like Andrew Capatti's framing better, which is that this is a decade of agents.

because they are just getting started and this is an emerging technology.

But at the time, the expectations were running way ahead of reality and people were imagining these autonomous entities that could do everything and run your business alone.

So yes, agents work and they are the new disruptive technology that for now proved effective in very narrow scopes and controlled environments.

Last year, I observed this gap between expectations and reality.

But then two things happened.

So first, the sentiment cooled down a bit.

The hype around agents got more measured.

I think, in fact, we are starting to get a little bit past peak hype because people are getting more realistic now about what agents can do.

But who knows what's going to happen tomorrow, right?

And the second thing is that the most important part is that the agents actually improved dramatically.

The technology really caught up with some of these expectations.

Not all of them, but I'd say enough that this gap narrowed.