Protocols move bits. Semantics move value. The reports on agents are starting to sound samey: go vertical not horizontal; redesign workflows end-to-end; clean your data; stop doing pilots that automate inefficiencies; price for outcomes when the agent does the work. All true. All necessary. All needing repetition ad nauseam. So it’s refreshing to see a switch-up in Bain’s Technology Report 2025: the real leverage now sits with semantics. A shared layer of meaning. Bain notes that protocols are maturing. MCP and A2A let agents pass tool calls, tokens, and results between layers. Useful plumbing. But there’s still no shared vocabulary that says what an invoice, policy, or work order is, how it moves through states, and how it maps to APIs, tables, and approvals. Without that, cross-vendor reliability will keep stalling. They go further: whoever lands a pragmatic semantic layer first gets winner-takes-most network effects. Define the dictionary and you steer the value flow. This isn’t just a feature. It’s a control point. Bain frames the stack clearly: - Systems of record (data, rules, compliance) - Agent operating systems (orchestration, planning, memory) - Outcome interfaces (natural language requests, user-facing actions) The bottleneck is semantics. And there’s a pricing twist. If agents do the work, semantics define what “done” means. That unlocks outcome-based pricing, charging for tasks completed or value delivered, not log-ons. Bain is blunt: the open, any-to-any agent utopia will smash against vendor incentives, messy data, IP, and security. Translation: walled gardens lead first. Start where governance is clear and data is good enough, then use that traction to shape the semantics others will later adopt. This is where I’m seeing convergence. In practice, a knowledge graph can provide that shared meaning, identity, relationships, and policy. One workable pattern: the agent plans with an LLM, resolves entities and checks rules in the graph, then acts through typed APIs, writing back as events the graph can audit. That’s the missing vocabulary and the enforcement that protocols alone can’t cover. Tony Seale puts it well: “Neural and symbolic systems are not rivals; they are complements… a knowledge graph provides the symbolic backbone… to ground AI in shared semantics and enforce consistency.” To me, this is optimistic, because it moves the conversation from “make the model smarter” to “make the system understandable.” Agents don’t need perfection if they are predictable, composable, and auditable. Semantics deliver that. It’s also how smaller players compete with hyperscalers: you don’t need to win the model race to win the meaning race. With semantics, agents become infrastructure. The next few years won’t be won by who builds the biggest model. It’ll be won by who defines the smallest shared meaning. | 27 comments on LinkedIn