Why Vertical AI Agents May Replace RPA in Complex Enterprise Workflows
6 saxon_ai 3 6/11/2025, 9:29:25 AM
RPA helped with task-level automation, but today’s enterprise processes demand more than macros and scripts. We’re seeing the rise of AI agents—context-aware, multi-system, and even collaborative. Curious how others are seeing this shift from automation to orchestration. Thoughts?
But I believe there's another layer to this shift: the move from Horizontal AI Agents to Vertical AI Agents.
Horizontal agents (like general-purpose chatbots or assistants) are powerful, but they lack deep, contextual understanding of a specific team's unique workflow. They can answer general questions, but they can't manage a complex design review process from end to end.
At my company, Markhub, we're betting on the power of Vertical AI. We're building an AI teammate, MAKi, that is not a generalist. It is an expert in one thing: the chaotic workflow of turning scattered team conversations into structured, actionable work.
It's designed to understand the specific context of a project—the feedback on a PDF, the follow-up questions in a chat, and the resulting tasks on a Kanban board. It doesn't just automate tasks; it orchestrates the entire feedback and execution lifecycle.
My belief is that the most successful enterprise AI won't be a single, all knowing agent. It will be a network of specialized, vertical agents like ours, each mastering a specific, high-value business process.
For most work processes beyong the ubiquitous 'vacation request' demo orchestration was never viable as a model due to its inherent inflexibility aligned with rose coloured, sunny day snenarios clashing with the real fluidity and complexity of the actual work floor.