The most valuable system you’ll build next isn’t an app— it’s context

For the last three decades, enterprise software has been built on ideas designed for a slower world. 

ERP. CRM. SCM. PLM. 

The limits of the old enterprise playbook

These systems became the backbone of how we run our businesses, but at their core, they’re containers — rigid applications built to store data and enforce rules. They manage processes, but they don’t understand them. 

They can execute, but they can’t reason. They lack intelligence. They lack context.

Why analytics alone can’t fix it

For years, we’ve wrapped analytics, integrations, and engineering around these systems to make them appear smarter. But even analytics break when the data underneath is incomplete, inconsistent, or disconnected. 

You can’t create truth from fragments. When context is missing, insight becomes interpretation — and when interpretation varies, trust erodes.

Disconnected systems, disconnected truths

The reality is that most enterprises today are flying blind. Their data sits locked inside applications that weren’t built for sharing or collaboration. I’ve seen global organizations running 68 separate Salesforce instances, each claiming to be the “system of record.” Others have three ERPs, five CRMs, and no single definition of “customer.” These systems were designed to own data, not to connect it — leaving businesses to operate on isolated facts rather than connected understanding.

AI exposes the cracks

Now, everything is changing. 

The rise of agentic AI — systems that can reason and act autonomously — is exposing every weakness in this model. AI doesn’t just need data; it needs understanding. It needs to know not just what something is, but what it means in relation to everything else. It needs the relationships, the hierarchies, the rules, and the semantics that give data its real-world context.

And that’s exactly what today’s enterprise architectures fail to provide. 

Our systems are smart in isolation and dumb in collaboration. Every application carries its own truth, every warehouse its own schema, every dashboard its own definition. We’ve built a digital landscape where the parts can’t see the whole — and that means even the most advanced AI can’t either.

The shift from applications to understanding

This is where the paradigm shift begins. 

The value is no longer in the application layer; it’s in the data and the context that connects it. 

Enterprise applications as we know them were built to automate, not to adapt. They were designed to make operations predictable, not intelligent. They served a world that moved in quarters, not milliseconds. 

That world is gone.

You need to rewire architecture for intelligence

Agentic AI is rewriting the rules of enterprise technology. It’s forcing us to rethink the architecture that supports intelligence. And as this happens, IT leaders are starting to recognize a hard truth: continuing to feed and maintain yesterday’s systems isn’t transformation — it’s slow death.

Context is the new currency of intelligent business

To compete in this new environment, businesses need systems that don’t just store data, but understand it. Systems that can connect meaning, govern trust, and activate intelligence across every domain and every decision. Systems that turn data into context — and context into action.

That’s the future. Not another wave of disconnected applications, but a new foundation that brings context, meaning, and intelligence together. A foundation built for interoperability, real-time reasoning, and explainable AI.

This isn’t science fiction; it’s the logical next step in enterprise evolution. 

The old playbook was about capturing transactions. The next one is about understanding relationships. The old systems were built for control. The next generation will be built for context.

Because in the age of AI, context is the new control point. The enterprises that master it will move faster, operate smarter, and trust their AI — because their AI will finally understand their business.

Learn how to start building the data foundation for agentic AI, today.