Why every lab is shipping an always-on agent
Coding agents cap out at tens of millions of developers, while always-on agents target everyone at a desk; the real prize is being the one agent people open each morning.
Why are Cursor, Codex and Claude Code being joined by Grok Bot, OpenAI Dots and Claude Duet? Follow the money. Coding agents have a ceiling. There are only tens of millions of developers in the world. Always-on agents go after everyone who works at a desk. That market is an order of magnitude bigger. Coding proved agents can do real work. Now every lab wants to sell that same capability to a much larger crowd. And the real prize isn't the agent itself. It's becoming the one agent people open every morning. Whoever owns that becomes the gateway to every tool underneath it. The coding agent becomes the hands. The always-on agent becomes the front door.