Topic

The value shift: code to context

As agent code commoditizes, the durable moat in AI services moves to context, access, and the forward-deployed agents that compress the work. Where value accrues once the code is free.

29 June 2026
Code was never the moat: context is the only durable asset in AI services
The deliverable a services-as-software firm sells and the asset that makes it defensible are two different things. As model inference collapses in price, the code an agent runs commoditizes, and the durable moat moves to the observed, accumulated context of how a specific business actually runs.

Code was never the moat: context is the only durable asset in AI services