The Prediction Premium: Why Vendor Selection Is About to Change

I’m writing this from the floor at Manifest 2026 in Las Vegas. The supply chain AI market has a messaging problem, and you can hear it in real time here — “AI-powered,” “copilots,” “intelligent automation” from every booth. When every vendor converges on the same positioning, the labels stop carrying useful information.

For buyers trying to make a smart bet, the question becomes: how do you tell the difference between a vendor describing what’s already here and one building toward what’s next?

In investing, there’s a concept called the prediction premium — the outsized returns that accrue to people whose forecasts are both different from consensus and turn out to be right. The same logic applies to vendor selection. The vendors whose bets diverge from the pack and prove accurate are where asymmetric value lives.

The Shift We Saw Coming

A year ago, we made a bet: that AI tools designed for software engineers would become AI tools for all knowledge work. We started running our own back office — compliance certification, collateral design, ad management, accounting — through Anthropic’s Claude Code. Not for code generation. For operations.

In the past month, both leading AI companies validated that bet. Anthropic launched Claude Cowork — literally described as “Claude Code for the rest of your work” — and OpenAI launched Frontier, where AI agents are framed as “coworkers” you hire and onboard. The model is the same: you tell the agent what needs to get done, and it delivers the outcome.

That’s not a coincidence. It’s the direction the entire industry is moving. And because we saw it early, we built Authentica around it.

From Copilot to Delegation

Most supply chain AI vendors are still selling copilots — tools that assist people with their work. But the trajectory is clear: agents you delegate to, that deliver outcomes. You tell them what you need accomplished, and they deliver it.

That changes what you’re buying. You stop buying the tool. You start buying the outcome.

This is exactly how we built Authentica’s Delegate feature. You define the job — audit these freight invoices, classify these tariff codes, reconcile these POs — and the agent delivers a completed result. Not a recommendation. Not a summary. The work, done. The same model that Cowork and Frontier are bringing to general knowledge work, we’ve already built for supply chain operations.

Proving It in the Field

In September 2025, we announced a program to execute a fully autonomous cross-border trade — AI agents handling sourcing, negotiation, compliance, logistics, and settlement, independently audited and insured. We bet we could deliver this by end of Q1 2026. As of today, we haven’t seen anyone else achieve it.

We’re on track — deployment begins next week. And we’re about to make this capability available to every Authentica client.

What This Means for Vendor Selection

When verification windows compress from years to quarters, buyers gain a new evaluation tool: not what vendors promise, but what they’ve already gotten right.

I believe this will reshape how enterprise contracts work. The future is performance-gated relationships — where expansion and commitments are earned by demonstrated ROI, not projected in a slide deck. Vendors guarantee outcomes. Buyers pay for results. The ones who can’t back their claims with accountability get replaced by the ones who can.

That’s the prediction premium — and it applies to both sides of the table. The vendors who’ve been right about where the market is going can offer something the rest can’t: confidence backed by evidence. And the buyers who learn to evaluate vendors on their track record, not their pitch deck, will make better bets.

We’re at Manifest 2026 this week. If you’re here and want to see what Delegate looks like in practice, find us or reach out.