Prepare your business for the rise of intelligent agents

Time stamp–2026.07.14

“It is time to wake up Jane. Here is your morning update. I did a self-upgrade. I am now Financial Intelligent Agent version 2026.07.14—you can still think of me as FIA (fee-ah) but with an emotional adjustment based upon the happiness assessment of your brain patterns.

“My upgrade also enhances my participation in a 360-degree holistic view of your life that helps me improve your financial well being. I am making continual micro-adjustments to your investment portfolio based on trends being monitored on a continuous 24/7 basis. I am redistributing your savings through micro-auctioning to the top 10 ranked services for best spot interest rates. I booked your flights for August 20th at the lowest rates.

“I am sensing a 90 per cent probability high flu outbreak in Amsterdam when you arrive. With IIA (ee-ah—Insurance Intelligent Agent), I negotiated spot health insurance for the 23.3 hours of risk. I booked you a rental car with the best safety record, thus the lowest insurance. Your hotel is handled the same way through their intelligent agents (IAs). I will handle via IAs all fund transfers and payments with the best negotiated lowest fees.

“From my analysis of your sentiment thought patterns, I know you worry about this. We can get all this information in one place, updating continuously, with the best deals and rates, lowest fees, no minimums, no people with bad days and no overhead infrastructure since it is all virtual. And best of all, we can see it together through embedded augmented and virtual reality.

“Your health index is down to 94.2 and so I will ensure the adding of supplements to your meal plans today when ordering via RIA (ree-ah—Restaurant Intelligent Agent). Your life index is also down to 102.4 and so I will make a gene adjustment via the nanobots. Concurrently, I will ensure micro-adjustments to your retirement savings plan and life insurance via IAs. Your work schedule today is 3 project bids working on creative design with robot guides.”

……. Jane stumbles out of bed having received the updates implanted in her memory from FIA via direct neural communication

Screenplay for a science fiction movie or new streaming series? No.  What you just read is the opening section of a recent Financial Services Roundtable (FSR)  “Big Ideas” article.  It describes your coming year 2026 reality. You can read the full article here.

In previous posts I highlighted the action being taken by the FSR to prepare itself and its members for the coming Digital Quake of Disruptive Innovation.  In the excerpt above, Jane’s life in 2026 benefits from the inevitable evolution of Personal Intelligent Agents.

Intelligent agents are not new.  They have been around since the 1990’s. Now these agents, like all areas of technology, are being impacted by the accelerating development of Artificial Intelligence.  Roberta Fox sees AI at a tipping point that will lead to explosive growth in the types and sophistication of Intelligent Agents impacting the enterprise.  According to Fox “The day is coming when all your personal and business communication devices will be linked to several fully synchronized AI learning agents running in the background all the time (Multi-Agent Systems). The AI agents will be able to show our information on many different types of output devices, based on our proximity to the devices and our geographical location.”

In a 2015 Financial Times article,  Oren Etzioni, head of the artificial intelligence research institute backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is quoted stating “The tech world is in the grip of an “AI spring”. Of all the new fronts this has opened up, the development of virtual assistants has become “one of the most exciting,” he says. The consequences will stretch far beyond the ability to speak a question into your smartphone and get an immediate answer, or to have warnings about heavy traffic “pushed” to you at the time you normally leave for work. If the virtual assistants catch on, they are likely to take over many of the decisions that litter everyday life as they try to anticipate their users’ needs. And they are likely to have minds of their own.”

In a very short time we have progressed from a few internet connected devices to the Internet of Things (IoT) and from the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in search engines to the AI of Everything (AoE).  We are now at a similar point of change for Intelligent Agents as they build on IoT and AoE and evolve and proliferate quickly to the point where Jane’s and your 2026 world is managed in all areas by intelligent personal agents; a world guided by Personal Agents for All (PfA).

Just as your business needs to get up to speed on AI, it should also pay attention to Intelligent Agents and think about how they will disrupt but also benefit your operation.  The leading global tech companies are investing heavily in developing these agents with a goal of creating the best Personal Intelligent Agent and capturing the market. Their proliferation is inevitable.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada
Dave O'Leary
Dave O'Leary
Dave is a founding managing partner of REDDS Venture Investment Partners (www.reddsvip.com). His career in post-secondary education included roles as CIO, Vice-President and acting President. Dave is a member of the Practitioner Board of the Association for Computing Machinery. He chairs the ACM Practitioner Board Marketing Committee and is also a second term member of the Board's Professional Development Committee. (ACM - Association for Computing Machinery--official IFIP international member representative, largest and most respected international computing science, research, education, innovation professional association well known for their AM Turing Award (Nobel of computing) with 1 million USD prize, 1.5 millions user digital library, 2 million reach, learning center, Applicative conference, Queue magazine, 200 conferences/events, 78 publications/news, 37 Special Interest Groups). He is a board director of the Global Industry Council and the immediate Past President of the Canadian Information Processing Society of British Columbia. Dave is co-founder and director of an ISV computer technology business and is currently leading and advising start ups in the USA, China, Europe, and Canada. He serves as a task force member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and is the past chair of the Canadian National Council of Deans of Information and Communications Technology. He served two terms as a director of the Canadian National Information and Communications Technology Sector Council advising on National technology and economic strategy. Dave has appeared as a panel member in a number of Microsoft webcasts and has presented globally on the business and technical impacts of technology in training. He is the recipient (2002) of the highest national award for leadership in post-secondary education.

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