TLDR: Writer, a leader in enterprise generative AI, and Mechanical Orchard, a legacy modernization company, have been named Gartner Cool Vendors in separate 2025 reports. Writer was recognized for its AI Agent Development platform, while Mechanical Orchard was honored for its AI Code Assistants. This highlights the growing importance of agentic AI, which Gartner identifies as a top tech trend for 2025, predicting significant enterprise adoption and impact on autonomous decision-making.
While initial reports suggested Sema4.ai was named a Gartner Cool Vendor, recent findings indicate that Writer, a leader in enterprise generative AI, and Mechanical Orchard, a legacy modernization company, have been prominently featured in Gartner’s 2025 “Cool Vendors” reports for their groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence. This recognition highlights their innovative solutions in agentic AI development and AI code assistants, respectively, aligning with Gartner’s prediction of Agentic AI as a top strategic technology trend for 2025.
Writer: Pioneering Agentic AI Development
On June 5, 2025, San Francisco-based Writer announced its inclusion in the inaugural 2025 Gartner® Cool Vendors™ report for AI Agent Development. Writer has spent five years pioneering the enterprise AI category, establishing the world’s only enterprise-focused AI research lab. The company is now at the forefront of the industry with an end-to-end approach to agentic AI. Its platform empowers IT and business teams across hundreds of leading enterprises to collaboratively build and scale AI agents, thereby streamlining workflows across various departments.
May Habib, CEO and Co-Founder of Writer, emphasized the significance of this recognition: “Being named a Gartner Cool Vendor in AI Agent Development is an important recognition of Writer’s platform. In a noisy market full of overpromises, Writer delivers what enterprises actually need: agentic systems that are accurate, governed, and built to scale. Our platform gives IT and business teams one place to build, activate, and supervise AI agents — grounded in business context, powered by our enterprise-grade LLMs, and built for real ROI.”
Gartner projects that by 2029, over 60% of enterprises will adopt AI agent development platforms to automate complex workflows that previously required human coordination. The report notes that the demand for AI agent development is surging as organizations strive for “hyperefficiency.”
Mechanical Orchard: Innovating AI Code Assistants
Following suit, on June 11, 2025, Mechanical Orchard, a company specializing in legacy modernization, was named a Cool Vendor in the 2025 Gartner® Cool Vendors in AI Code Assistants report. This acknowledgment underscores the company’s innovative and less disruptive approach to modernizing traditional systems. Mechanical Orchard recently launched Imogen, its comprehensive mainframe modernization platform, and has partnered with global technology consultancy Thoughtworks.
The Gartner report highlights the challenges faced by software engineering teams in modernizing mission-critical legacy systems while ensuring seamless operational continuity. It recommends that these teams leverage AI code assistants to deepen their understanding of code and systems by accessing up-to-date context from enterprise code repositories.
Irene Sandler, CMO of Mechanical Orchard, commented on the recognition: “We think Gartner rightly noted in 2023 that generative AI changes the game, but the hardest part remains: how to trust AI-generated code. Our behavioral, data-capture-based approach focuses on converging AI-generated code to the exact specifications of the system we’re modernizing. We believe it’s great to receive Gartner’s recognition that our approach has the potential to solve some big challenges.”
The Rise of Agentic AI
Gartner has identified Agentic AI as the top strategic technology trend for 2025, describing it as autonomous machine “agents” that transcend simple query-and-response chatbots to perform enterprise-related tasks without human intervention. The research firm predicts that by 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will incorporate agentic AI, leading to 15% of day-to-day work decisions being made autonomously.
Tom Coshow, a senior director analyst at Gartner, stated that “Agentic AI has the potential to perform as a highly competent teammate by providing insights from derivative events that are often not visible to human teammates.” While offering significant business benefits, such as creating a “virtual workforce,” Gartner also advises caution, noting challenges related to governance, trustworthiness, data quality, employee resistance, and potential cyberattacks.
Also Read:
- The Rise of Autonomous AI Agents: Transforming Workflows and Enterprise Operations
- Capgemini Study Reveals Growing Expectation for AI Systems to Function as Teammates or Supervisors by Mid-2026
The recognition of companies like Writer and Mechanical Orchard as Gartner Cool Vendors signals a pivotal moment in the evolution of AI, emphasizing the industry’s shift towards more autonomous and intelligent systems designed to enhance enterprise efficiency and innovation.
