OpenAI and ServiceNow just announced a partnership to embed AI agents directly into enterprise business software. This is the counterpoint to all those CEOs reporting zero ROI from AI - actual integration into systems people already use.

Here's why this matters: ServiceNow is not a consumer app. It's the IT service management platform that runs help desk operations, workflow automation, and business process management for half the Fortune 500. When your company's employees submit IT tickets, file HR requests, or trigger approval workflows, there's a good chance it's running through ServiceNow.

Putting AI agents into that infrastructure is different from adding a chatbot to your website. These agents will have access to internal systems, process documentation, ticket history, and organizational knowledge. Done right, this could actually automate entire categories of work that currently require human judgment.

Done wrong, it could create spectacular new categories of failure.

The bet OpenAI is making is that agentic AI - systems that can take actions, not just answer questions - will finally deliver the business value that chat interfaces haven't. Instead of a help desk agent reading a ticket and manually creating the workflow to provision a new laptop, the AI agent just does it. Instead of someone from IT manually checking if a requested software install complies with security policies, the agent checks the policies and approves or denies it.

This is the vision Sam Altman has been selling: AI that doesn't just assist workers, but actually does work. And enterprise software platforms like ServiceNow are the perfect deployment environment because they already have access to the systems, data, and permissions needed to take action.

But here's what I'm watching for: how much autonomy will these agents actually have? Will they require human approval for substantive actions? How will they handle edge cases that don't match their training? What happens when an AI agent makes a decision that costs the company money or violates a policy?

The companies getting ROI from AI right now are the ones that deployed it in narrow, well-defined domains where failure modes are understood and containable. An AI agent that can answer common IT questions from a knowledge base is low risk. An AI agent that can provision cloud resources, modify user permissions, or approve budget expenditures is extremely high risk.

My guess is that the initial deployment will be conservative - agents that can suggest actions but require human approval for anything substantive. That's the right call from a liability perspective, but it's also not the revolutionary "AI workforce" that's been promised.

The other thing to watch: how well do these agents actually understand enterprise context? ChatGPT is impressive when you're asking it general knowledge questions. It's a lot less impressive when you're asking it to navigate your company's specific policies, system configurations, and organizational politics.

Enterprise software is messy. Workflows are inconsistent. Documentation is outdated. People have workarounds that aren't written down anywhere. If the AI agent can't handle that messiness, it won't be replacing workers - it'll be creating more work for the humans who have to clean up after it.

But I'll give OpenAI credit for this: partnering with ServiceNow is a smart move. It's targeting the actual enterprise integration problem instead of just selling API access and hoping customers figure it out. If agentic AI is going to work in business contexts, this is what the path looks like.

Now we'll see if it actually delivers value, or if this becomes another "AI initiative" that CEOs report spending money on with nothing to show for it.