Do agentic AI startups need to differentiate?

The agentic AI space is seeing a surge in activity with disruptive advancements like OpenAI’s Operator and China’s Manus AI. These powerful agents can autonomously buy groceries online, book an Uber ride and trade in stocks through simple prompting.

The emerging dominance of Big Tech in the space has begged the question whether agents are on the path to getting commoditised just like AI models—whether a swarm of agents will flood a marketplace and compete on price, and whether agentic startups will have any business moat to protect.

Agents go…