Series ยท 1 part
The Protocol Firm
How programmable governance, autonomous agents and networks change the operating model of the firm
The Firm Under AI asked how cheaper intelligence, execution and coordination change the economic boundary of the firm. It ended by describing the firm as moving from operator to governor. This series makes that distinction more precise: the firm still executes institutionally, while more individual action occurs under delegated authority rather than direct managerial instruction.
This series begins there, and asks the operational question that one left open:
How does a firm operate when more of its work is carried out under delegated authority rather than direct managerial instruction?
AI makes more intelligence available to the firm, allowing execution capacity to grow without a proportional increase in human effort at the point of execution. The argument runs from that economic change to the operating model and architecture required to keep delegated action governable, testable and open to correction.
Its subject is the firm. Not AI governance in isolation, and not agent architecture in isolation.