Operational software often succeeds technically and fails behaviourally. It detects the right thing, stores the right data and produces the right notification. Then nothing changes.
The last mile is not another model or integration. It is the point where the software enters a person’s actual work with enough context, timing and ownership to change the next action.
The system is not finished when it knows. It is finished when the right person can act.
Do not automate away legibility.
Agents can remove repetitive research, summarisation and routing. That is useful. But a system becomes fragile when nobody can understand why an action was recommended or who remains accountable for the outcome.
The best automation removes work without removing legibility. It should make the path from evidence to action easier to inspect, not harder.
Ownership is a product feature.
Many workflows treat ownership as an organisational detail outside the product. In practice, ownership is part of the interface. A signal that reaches nobody is not a weak notification. It is an incomplete product.
Useful automation should reduce the work required to make a good decision without pretending the decision no longer belongs to anyone.