At one end sit the horizontal consolidators, Salesforce, Microsoft, ServiceNow, companies that already hold your CRM or your ITSM contract and can fold an AI agent into a deal you have already signed.

At the other end sit the vertical specialists, the ones who went deep into a single regulated or operationally complex industry where domain knowledge is the product and a generic agent cannot follow them in. Lorikeet, built for regulated industries, sits here.

The thin part is the standalone horizontal agent, good technology with no distribution and no vertical moat behind it. That position is the one getting squeezed, and the Salesforce acquisition of Fin is the squeeze happening in public.

The strongest independent in the category sold to the largest sales machine in software, and the neutral best-of-breed slot on a buyer's shortlist quietly emptied.

If you already run one of these tools, the question I recommend asking is which end of the barbell your vendor sits on, because the middle is where roadmaps slow and pricing gets renegotiated once an acquirer takes over.

If you are choosing now, a standalone agent that only resolves tickets is the most exposed pick on the table. Depth into your industry, or weight behind a platform you already use, are the two positions that survive consolidation.