Stack layer · AI that employees and developers work with
AI Assistants & Always-on Agents
The layer people actually see: assistants that answer when asked, and always-on agents that keep working on a user's behalf. Both inherit the controls set in the layers below.
25 current tools in 2 categories · see the whole stack
Categories in this layer
Assistants & copilots
17 toolsCoding copilots, productivity assistants, and build-your-own assistant platforms.
Always-on agents
8 toolsPersistent personal and team agents that act on a user's behalf across apps, chat, and their own computer.
Recent updates in this layer
- 2026-09-28Grok Bot
xAI opened Team Bots, shared always-on bots for Grok Teams and Enterprise plans, as a public beta.
Source - 2026-09-25Microsoft Autopilot
Microsoft renamed its always-on agent Microsoft Scout to Autopilot in the new Copilot, with usage-based billing and a private preview expanding to more Frontier customers at the end of September.
Source - 2026-09-22GitHub Copilot
Claude Opus 5.5 became selectable in GitHub Copilot for Pro+, Max, Business, and Enterprise plans across IDEs, GitHub.com, Copilot CLI, and the coding agent.
Source - 2026-09-10Cursor
Cursor launched Projects in beta for long-lived bodies of work, with a coordinator that delegates to parallel cloud and local agents, shared project context, and scheduled or event-driven subscriptions.
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