TLDR: Bret Taylor, CEO of AI startup Sierra and Chairman of OpenAI, predicts that AI agents will fundamentally reshape the business landscape, much like the internet and mobile revolutions. He emphasizes the shift towards agentic AI for customer experience, highlighting Sierra’s outcomes-based pricing model and the growing importance of voice and multi-modal interfaces.
Bret Taylor, a prominent figure in the technology world as the CEO of AI startup Sierra and Chairman of OpenAI, has articulated a bold vision for the future of business, asserting that artificial intelligence agents are poised to redefine industries with an impact comparable to that of the internet. Speaking at the Skift Global Forum in New York City on September 18, 2025, Taylor drew striking parallels between the current AI boom and the transformative eras of the internet three decades ago and mobile applications a decade past.
Taylor’s perspective is rooted in his experience, including his departure from Salesforce in early 2023, just before the public launch of ChatGPT. This event, he noted, was personally transformative, leading him to co-found Sierra with Clay Bavor. Sierra is dedicated to building AI agents primarily for customer experience, operating on the hypothesis that within five years, AI agents will become the primary digital interface for most companies.
A key differentiator for Sierra is its innovative ‘outcomes-based pricing’ model. Unlike traditional software subscriptions, Sierra charges clients only when its AI agents successfully resolve a customer issue without human intervention. If an agent escalates a case to a human, there is no fee. Taylor argues this model perfectly aligns incentives between the vendor and the client, fostering accountability and trust.
Sierra’s AI agents are already demonstrating their transformative potential across various sectors. The company, which recently achieved ‘decacorn’ status with a $10 billion valuation after a $350 million funding round from Greenoaks Capital, serves hundreds of enterprise customers in financial services, healthcare, and retail. These agents are actively engaged in complex tasks such as selling mortgages, making outbound sales calls, managing payroll for small businesses, and processing warranty claims by analyzing product photos.
Taylor also highlighted the evolving form factor of AI agents. While chatbots currently dominate, he believes voice-enabled AI is ‘as, or more important, of a channel than chat,’ with multi-modal agents also rapidly emerging. This shift addresses a significant pain point in traditional customer service: the high cost and often poor experience of phone support. AI allows companies to engage in meaningful, real-time conversations with millions of customers, a scale previously unattainable.
As Chairman of OpenAI, Taylor also offered insights into the concept of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). He suggested that society has already surpassed what many would have considered AGI a few years ago, particularly in digital reasoning, coding, and problem-solving. The current frontier, he believes, lies in generalization and real-world impact.
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Taylor cautioned that while the current period might feel like an ‘AI bubble’ where some ventures will inevitably fail, the underlying technology will generate immense economic value. He stressed the importance for business leaders to ‘push decisively towards this new world,’ noting that consumer expectations, as evidenced by ChatGPT’s rapid adoption, are evolving faster than most companies can adapt.
