At the Milken Conference in May 2026, Robert F. Smith, founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, described a shift that every security leader should hear. Software, he said, has moved through three states: product, then service and now worker. “That agent, that software, actually does work.” Companies that do not make the transition to software as a worker, he was blunt, risk being disintermediated entirely. He is not only right because organizations risk falling behind the competition as Al increases efficiency, but also because agentic systems have the potential to address systemic challenges many organizations are facing today.