Phil pods with Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie: AI agents look more like BPO than software — The next decade of work Video

In this episode of From the Horse's Mouth, HFS Research CEO and Chief Analyst Phil Fersht sits down with Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, to explore the next decade of enterprise AI, agents, and knowledge work.

Aaron explains why the first phase of AI, largely the chatbot era, delivered incremental productivity gains within existing workflows, while the bigger opportunity requires enterprises to rethink and re-engineer business processes. He argues that this transformation will unfold over the next decade as AI spreads beyond engineering into sales, marketing, HR, customer service, and other functions.

Phil and Aaron discuss how this shift will reshape AI spending. As investments grow, Aaron expects ownership to shift increasingly from CIO technology budgets to business leaders, who will weigh people, tokens, and outcomes much as they once evaluated BPO services. They also explore evolving pricing models and why enterprises need to separate corporate intelligence and IP from individual AI models, maintaining the flexibility to switch models as the technology advances.

At the heart of the conversation is enterprise intelligence. Aaron explores how agents can finally reason over vast amounts of unstructured corporate data, why systems of record such as CRM and ERP become even more valuable in an agentic world, and what it means to "build something agents want" when agents increasingly influence discovery and decision-making.

They also examine the future of professional services, why forward-deployed and AI-native service providers can deliver larger projects faster, and the talent required to succeed. Aaron closes with lessons on separating genuine transformation from hype and Advice for founders: focus on large, enduring problems with strong technical moats and choose your founding team carefully.

Chapters

0:00 Meet Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box 2:03 Mentors, and learning from the history of software 3:39 Where humans enter the loop now 6:58 Re-engineering the workflow for agents 8:01 Why AI shouldn't be funded from the IT budget 12:07 How will AI actually get priced? 14:51 Frontier models vs private and sovereign 19:03 Keeping your corporate knowledge out of the model 19:55 Unstructured data: the next Databricks moment 23:12 Do apps still matter when agents use the APIs? 26:49 Build something agents want 28:14 Consulting and services in the agent era 32:00 Talent: making the whole firm expert at agents 35:01 Crossing the chasm: telling hype from real 40:50 Advice to young entrepreneurs

Learn More & Connect HFS Research: https://www.hfsresearch.com The podcast: https://horsesmouthpodcast.com Phil Fersht on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pfersht Aaron Levie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronlevie

From the Horse's Mouth: Intrepid Conversations with Phil Fersht brings together founders, executives, and contrarian thinkers for unfiltered conversations on the forces reshaping business and technology. Hosted by HFS Research CEO and Chief Analyst, Phil Fersht.

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