If You’re Still Quoting by PDF, You’re Already Behind - Inspiration from the Year 2013

By Greg Walters

The convergence wasn’t a future event. It wasn’t even a prediction. It was a condition. And it’s here, embedded in systems you forgot you were still using. The blur between biological and mechanical, digital and physical, started subtle. Now it’s invasive. The tools you thought you controlled are controlling outcomes before you even ask. You didn’t miss a moment. You missed a migration.

In 2013, I called it. Not because I had a crystal ball, but because I’d been watching tech, business, and biology collapse into each other since I sold my first copier. Back then, we were connecting the dots between document management and toner yields. We thought convergence meant plugging a fax line into a server. Now? Ai agents are booking flights, filing expenses, managing vendor approvals, and paying invoices with corporate cards tied to policy engines that operate faster than human reaction time.

We’ve gone from sales reps quoting MFPs to autonomous agents like Devin from Cognition coding entire applications, submitting pull requests, resolving bugs overnight, and writing documentation. Rabbit R1 doesn’t just answer questions. It interfaces with your calendar, your contacts, your apps, and your email like a concierge who already knows your preferences. Stripe’s Ai tools initiate and complete payment flows without you ever logging in. These systems don’t suggest. They execute. And they never sleep.

This isn’t fringe. This is the operational core. And it’s scaling faster than procurement teams can sign off.

​Back in 2013, I wrote that we were witnessing silos dissolve. Copiers were no longer just output devices. They were becoming digital touchpoints for capturing, routing, and acting on information. That was the seed. Now that same convergence logic has engulfed the enterprise. Input and output are fused. Interfaces have dissolved. You speak. The system acts.

Let’s break it down:

​

• Then: a copier that scanned to email felt revolutionary. Now: Ai reads the scanned document, extracts relevant data, maps it to a workflow, and triggers a task in your project management system.
• Then: quoting software helped parse leasing options. Now: Ai reads the RFP, compares it to historic wins, configures the solution, generates a custom proposal, and emails it for you.
• Then: sales was human-to-human. Now: Ai monitors usage, predicts renewal resistance, adjusts SLAs, and triggers retention workflows before you even hear back from procurement.
• Then: onboarding meant folders and checklists. Now: Ai walks new hires through systems, books their training sessions, and tracks engagement.
• Then: market research took weeks. Now: Ai scans competitors, rewrites your pitch deck, and updates the narrative overnight.

This is more than agency. This is orchestration without permission. Autonomy without authority. Your job is being handled by tools you didn’t assign, running code you can’t read.

Read the rest, on greg report, the Back Page.