# Agents will extend legacy software and enable new products

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/agents-will-extend-legacy-software-and-enable-new-products/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Ari Weinstein](https://realalpha.app/builders/ari-weinstein/) · Head of Computer Use, OpenAI · Leads product and engineering for OpenAI's computer use agents; previously co-founded Sky, which OpenAI acquired.
- Host: Seema Amble · a16z
- Host: Fabrizio Serafini · a16z
- Show: a16z Podcast
- Episode: [Why OpenAI Is Racing to Make Computer Use Superhuman](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/), Oct 26, 2026
- Moment: 25:23 to 32:55 of the episode (8 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/agents-will-extend-legacy-software-and-enable-new-products/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1523

## Quote

> “So I expect **both of those things** to continue for a long time.”
> — [Ari Weinstein](https://realalpha.app/builders/ari-weinstein/) at [26:27](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1587) · a16z Podcast

## Takeaways

1. Legacy software will remain in production for years.
2. Agents may push software makers to support agent workflows.
3. Personalized, well-crafted software can preserve the value of UI.

## About this segment

Ari Weinstein and James expect computer use to work with old software while cheaper development enables new, tailored applications. They argue that human-friendly interfaces and craftsmanship will still matter.

From “Why OpenAI Is Racing to Make Computer Use Superhuman”, Oct 26, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[25:36](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1536) and I'm really excited about that. On that point okay form factor of software changing imagine if you're an enterprise user you've used to you're used to using whatever clunky ERP from you know 30 years ago there's a world in which you now you know unleash a set of agents that just operate that software, and you don't really care. There's another world in which folks are a new, like, AI native player is using a computer using agent. And I'm curious if, do you think the world is going to go more in the direction of, like, keep the legacy folks and just have this layer on top? Or do you think, you know, computer using agents can absolutely be part of new software players? And this is something I think a lot about, so I'm curious to get your guys' thoughts.

[26:25](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1585) It is such an interesting moment where simultaneously the cost and complexity of creating new software is so much lower. So you can't imagine software changing so much. But also there exists so much legacy software in the world that computer use is so well suited to interact with. So I expect both of those things to continue for a long time. You know, if you look at the software that's in production today, a lot of it was written 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.

[26:48](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1608) And I don't think that that stuff's going to go away overnight. I do think that in some way the existence of computer use may put more pressure on companies to make software work better with agents because all the software is going to work with agents by default. And I think WebMCP is a great example of this, and I think we'll see more stuff like that. So, yeah, I sort of expect both to be super important, but I do think it'll like kind of shift over time.

[27:15](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1635) What do you think, James? Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's like the way there's a lot of arts and craft. And you understand this because Ari built a beautiful product with his team. The cursor was all in. And so I think there's like a lot of art and craft into building like great products that people can hold in their hand. And I don't know, like for me, if we go, if the internet becomes just this like faceless, you know, thing that is just agents talking to each other and people are not using anything.

[27:48](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1668) more i would be very sad um and i don't think it will be like that because like there's like something about craftsmanship and art artisan software that's like just feels nice to use because the person who designed it really really understands um like the experience that the customer wants to have so like my wife loves is recently got into playing this like uh you know board game i forgot the name of it it's where you connect like five pebbles to like win i think it's It's like OMOC is the name of it.

[28:17](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1697) And so anyway, so she's trying to get good at it because she's playing online with friends and is getting her ass kicked. And so I was like, all right, I'm going to build you like a tactical trainer for, you know, going through different gambits so you can like get better at it. Like that's, for example, something that like, I, you know, created a first version. I was like, oh, I know like she likes to do it in a certain way.

[28:38](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1718) She likes these type of ways to learn more than others. And so I was able to like, you know, craft the software to be something like feels really good for her. And like these kind of personalized software, I know it's like, I think maybe today still feels like only really tech people will do. But I think if you like, think about this a few years out, it's like, if anybody can build anything, and they can build these really craft software in a very short amount of time for like niche use cases that are like so well tailored for people, I think that's a beautiful world.

[29:07](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1747) And again, you know, at the end of her training, the lessons and mistakes she made, that could be an agent that summarizes it and gives it to her in a text format. But when she's actually playing with the AI and trying to get better, that's something that the person has to do. So I do think it's, I'm bullish that I don't think UI is going away. And I think kind of at the low tangential to your original question, but I do think that the pressure of cheap software will make it so that software has to be better.

[29:38](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1778) But I don't think it will just be like, yeah, everything will have an MCP and an API and, you know, computer use will never be useful. I love this point so much. I think that like humans are so hardwired for direct manipulation. You really want to be able to, you know, move and do things with your own hands. Yeah. And I think that it's really exciting to think about how software in the past was so one size fits all.

[30:01](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1801) It had to be, you know, often a lot of the software we interact with every day is designed for millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions of people to use. And I think we will enter an era where any piece of software could be designed for a hundred people or one person and just how much more personal and unique that kind of software will be. Yeah. My mental model is I think there's probably two buckets. One is on the consumer side, you've got either something you just get joy out of, you enjoy using, or you learn from there is this it's not the utility of it it's the joy of interacting or learning or whatever it is and you want to spend time on the on the b2b side you you may want your agent to complete a bunch of the tedious work but you also there's this concept of like the audit log like

[30:48](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1848) and you that could be personalized in how you want to interact but the product really is me as the human user setting the goal and then being able to like understand the logic but not necessarily need to run through like the entire chain of command of how it happened and so like any b2b user still needs to figure out okay like why did that payment get made and go back in and get a summary of what happened and be able to say okay pay this person at this time um yeah at 30 days this month this much um discount should be applied etc they want the agent to take care of like the execution of it but they want to be able to at some level like some level of control still needs to be put in there.

[31:27](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1887) And I think that's like something that does require a UI of some sort. And it has to be, I think if we're moving more towards believing that AI will do more of this, that part has to be enjoyable to use too, right? Why not? Like, why should we settle for shitty software? Yeah. You know, it's... I do think it'll be really interesting to see if we, and I... I am optimistic that we will see new kinds of software where it has traditional user interfaces, but is also using agents under the hood.

[31:56](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1916) And then maybe sometimes those agents are themselves using computer use to automate legacy software by giving you some much nicer, more purpose-built experience. I'm like really excited for that class of thing. Yeah, it's kind of like the one where we like to use internally, it's like the shared intelligence layer, right? Like you have your agent using legacy software somewhere else and doing things at other places.

[32:17](https://realalpha.app/v/9v42ZOdiBJY/?t=1937) if you're using an application the application wants to get access to that context so it's able to deliver a better experience. I think if we had every website has its own agent that doesn't talk to your agent it's a very fragmented world and so figuring out how that plays together where the agent can plug in and use your other software I think it's going to be a really interesting thing to play out for the next few months. I love that you guys talk about this because I think it's so underappreciated the importance of