From Middlemen to Machines: The New Economic Order

How AI is redefining the role of brokers, agents, and consultants -- and opening the door to new business models along the way

As long as people have been buying, selling, or trading goods, middlemen have been, well, in the middle of things. Whether serving as keepers of critical information or the unlocks to must-have relationships, these intermediaries—brokers, agents, consultants, and even local service providers—have functioned as the glue holding the world as we know it together. From Marco Polo on the Silk Road to the market makers that defined my early years on Wall Street, middlemen have stood the test of time as indispensable pillars of stability.

Yet today, AI is rewriting the rules of engagement. With each new model advancement, individuals and businesses are increasingly empowered to do more with less. The roles once dominated by human go-betweens are being automated, optimized, and in some cases, outright eliminated. As efficiency becomes the new currency, the traditional role of middlemen is increasingly under threat.

Move Over, Middlemen. The Age of Agents Has Arrived.

Middlemen have long thrived on helping us normals navigate complexity. Faced with uncertainty, consumers and businesses alike have historically been willing to pay for an extra (yet oftentimes superfluous) layer of assurance—like the time I hired a seasoned litigator to handle my first speeding ticket at 16 (oops!). However, AI is increasingly stepping in—faster, cheaper, and often more accurately—to replace the security blankets once provided by these assumed experts.

While 2022 and 2023 were all about building AI foundations, over the past 18 months the focus has shifted to applications. While AI copilots integrated into workflows built early trust, we’ve now entered the Age of Agents—where AI is no longer just assisting existing systems; it's reshaping how they operate.

In this new paradigm, AI isn’t just putting pressure on middlemen—it is increasingly eliminating them. Industries are shifting from human-driven networks to AI-powered ecosystems, where knowledge is instant, relationships are algorithmically brokered, and complexity is autonomously managed.

The village is shrinking. Middlemen are vanishing. And the world? It's increasingly held together by smarter models that understand us better than we understand ourselves.

The Implications of an Agent-Driven Economy

The decline of middlemen is not just an economic shift—it’s a cultural one. For centuries, intermediaries have wielded power not just because they provided expertise but because they controlled access to knowledge, networks, and resources. Consumers depended on their primary care doctor for access to blood tests. Brands trusted marketing agencies for the best PR contacts, designers, and ad buyers. And businesses relied upon expensive brokers to source products and navigate global trade.

However, as AI democratizes these advantages, it will redistribute power away from centralized gatekeepers and into the hands of individuals and operators by offering:

1. AI-native UX as a core differentiator. The platforms that thrive won’t just integrate AI; they’ll rethink how humans interact with technology. We’re moving beyond clicking and typing to a world of fluid, intent-driven computing, where software operates like an extension of human thought and multimodality opens doors to entirely new interaction paradigms.

2. Falling costs, rising access. By removing intermediaries, AI will dramatically lower the cost of services. By increasing both affordability and agency, AI will allow for greater accessibility, especially in areas where expertise was previously locked behind high fees or structural barriers.

3. Faster decision-making. Without middlemen slowing down processes with back-and-forth communications, AI will enable near-instant decision-making and real-time access to critical information.

4. Personalization. User interactions and continually customized experiences will orient around a specific user’s behavior and stated preferences. The more a product is used, the more tailored it will become.

5. New business models. As traditional middlemen fade, AI-driven self-service models will enable users to interact directly with systems and bypass the friction of human intermediaries.

All Agents All the Time?

Not quite. While AI's impact feels more like a tsunami than a wave, middlemen won’t vanish overnight. Instead, their roles will evolve. The most successful will transition from connecting to curating and coaching, as they provide uniquely human value—emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, regulatory guidance, proprietary access, and complex decision-making beyond AI’s existing imagination.

This future may favor a more artisanal economy, where middlemen thrive by prioritizing quality over quantity in the value they provide. However, the larger trend is clear—traditional hierarchies built around knowledge asymmetry will be washed away by AI-driven systems that are flatter, faster, and functionality-rich.

The Road Ahead: Agents as the New Highways to Help

As AI permeates every industry, the addressable opportunities will evolve, making us as a firm eager to explore:

Opportunity #1: AI-powered assistants that handle everything from researching to planning. By replacing cookie-cutter consultants, they will offer users greater autonomy in categories like…

1. Content Creation, where companies allocate over $400Bn annually to media generation

2. Events, where planning services today account for roughly 20% of total event spend

3. Financial Planning, where an aging workforce of advisors capture over $89Bn in fees

4. Health Diagnostics & Coaching, where preventive care could meaningfully moderate the $1.1Tn spent annually on treating chronic conditions in the US

5. Style & Design, where 1.5Bn sources of inspiration are saved on Pinterest every week

6. Legal Services, where consumers and businesses spend a combined $1Tn on services and support

7. Mental Health Services, where roughly 2 in 3 Americans with a diagnosed condition lack access to treatment

8. Personal Training, where consumers spend $48Bn globally

9. Staffing & Recruitment, where $2Tn will be spent on candidate placement by 2031

10. Tax Prep & Accounting, where almost 75% of CPAs are approaching retirement

Opportunity #2: AI-enabled marketplaces that seamlessly connect businesses and consumers with goods and services. By replacing redundant human interactions with AI-enhanced understanding, they will proactively match translated demand to personalized supply across industries like…

1. Autos, where $4.4Tn in assets change hands annually

2. Commodities, where the global brokerage and derivatives market has surged to $547Bn

3. Equipment Rental, where 40-60% industry gross profit margins underscore the juice to be squeezed by expanding liquidity

4. Freight & Logistics, where businesses spend over $6Tn annually transporting goods

5. Heavy Equipment, where sales are projected to reach $250Bn in the next few years

6. Procurement, where businesses spend more on outsourced procurement providers than they do on internal software tools

7. Real Estate, where agents rake in over $100Bn in commissions each year

8. Tutoring, where under 15% of services are delivered digitally today

9. Travel, where the market for online agencies has surpassed $600Bn

10. Wholesale, where $52Tn in transactions are brokered globally each year

Opportunity #3: AI operating systems for service providers that expand and amplify skills. They will shift workflows from reactive and run-of-the-mill to proactive and personalized with dynamic data tracking and real-time recommendations across fields like…

1. Advertising, where businesses spend $456Bn on advertising expenses and $78Bn on agencies alone

2. Architecture, where a single design can require hundreds of hours of work

3. Claims Adjustment, where $44Bn is spent annually on investigating, appraising, and settling insurance claims

4. Customer Support, where 54% of companies rely on outsourced providers

5. General Contractors, where the average profit margin is a measly 6%

6. Healthcare, where clinicians spend over 15% of their time on administrative workflows

7. Insurance Sales, where 50% of professionals are expected to leave the workforce by the end of the decade

8. Marketing, where 68% of employees report a more challenging professional landscape than 5 years ago

9. Mortgage Sales, where agents can spend up to 20 hours per transaction

10. Property Management, where owners pay over $25Bn in fees each year

…and these initial examples only scratch the surface.

The incoming Age of Agents isn’t just about streamlining the status quo. It’s about reprogramming reality and dramatically democratizing. No more browsing endless vendor profiles or filling out onerous intake forms. Unified systems will take us from input to outcome in a few seamless user-directed steps. And this evolution will open the door to a world of unprecedented user access and autonomy.

If you’re as excited about the Age of Agents as we are, we’d love to hear from you. Subscribe to this Substack or find me on LinkedIn or Twitter for more.