Platforms like Nebula allow founders to move beyond simple automation. By providing a high-level directive and connecting services, AI agents can run entire business functions, like a content blog that researches, writes, and publishes daily with minimal human intervention.

Instead of static documents, business processes can be codified as executable "topical guides" for AI agents. This solves knowledge transfer issues when employees leave and automates rote work, like checking for daily team reports, making processes self-enforcing.

Toast's AI vision isn't just a chatbot. It aims to act as a fractional employee for restaurateurs, automating complex tasks they'd normally hire consultants for—like marketing, accounting, and payroll—democratizing expertise for small businesses.

Run HR, finance, and legal using AI agents that operate based on codified rules. This creates an autonomous back office where human intervention is only required for exceptions, not routine patterns. The mantra is: "patterns deserve code, exceptions deserve people."

Gusto defends against AI disruption by being a "system of action." Unlike pure software, which can be replicated by AI, Gusto takes on legal liability and executes real-world tasks like tax filings. This responsibility for accuracy and outcomes is a barrier that foundation model providers are unwilling to cross.

Instead of interacting with SaaS GUIs (like Greenhouse for hiring), users will interact with AI agents. These agents will directly manipulate the underlying system-of-record data, managing entire workflows from a simple conversation and making the traditional SaaS application redundant.

By choosing familiar, conversational interfaces like SMS and Slack over a dedicated app, Gusto is making its AI agent feel like a real team member. This reduces friction and makes delegation feel more natural for entrepreneurs who are used to texting or slacking an assistant to get tasks done.

By connecting to APIs for platforms like Shopify, AI agents like Clawdbot can automate complex, manual workflows such as inventory, ordering, and employee scheduling for non-tech small businesses, saving significant time and money.

A process that took days of manual work—exporting 150 sponsor profiles, finding logos, researching descriptions, and formatting for an app—was automated by an AI agent and a co-pilot. The AI did the export, research, and reformatting in just 10 minutes, delivering richer data than the manual process ever did.