Meet Nikki Brown and Yaniv Rodenski, co-founders of Cartesian, a Melbourne startup using agentic AI to revolutionise how ecosystems drive growth. In this episode of The Ecosystem Experience, we explore why the traditional marketplace model is dying, how AI agents are replacing search engines, and what it means to build a business when the platform beneath you could change overnight.
Nikki and Yaniv take us back to nearly two years ago when they first started talking about agents... and had to explain to everyone what an agent even was. Today, agentic AI is everywhere, but most people still don't grasp how fundamentally it changes ecosystems. The old marketplace model was built on search engines. Users went to a destination, searched for solutions, and hoped they found the right one. That world is disappearing fast. People now expect proactive recommendations in context, not separate destinations they have to visit.
We discuss what contextual recommendations actually look like in practice. Imagine working on a report and an agent proactively suggests a dataset that would make your analysis better... something you didn't even know existed. Or a consultant being told "there's already a product that does this" before they waste time building something custom. This isn't science fiction. This is the ecosystem experience that users now demand, and vendors who don't adapt will be left behind.
From the challenge of being a small startup disrupting established marketplace models to the reality of building on top of foundation models whose costs are currently subsidised by investors, Nikki and Yaniv are refreshingly honest about the risks. The platform you integrate with could change strategy tomorrow. The LLM you build on could change pricing next quarter. Your business model needs to account for these dependencies, not ignore them.
Nikki emphasises what vendors keep getting wrong: they're not focusing enough on actual user needs. There's a tendency to build things and throw them out there to see what works, rather than deeply understanding the use cases that matter. Yaniv adds that agents are still being built too broad, and vendors aren't thinking strategically enough about their relationships with both the platforms they integrate with and the foundation models they depend on.
Whether you're building AI-powered products, managing an ecosystem platform, or trying to understand where marketplaces are headed, Nikki and Yaniv offer a masterclass in navigating technological disruption. They remind us that vendors need to rapidly expand their APIs and integration points, moving from external destinations to embedded experiences. The future isn't about building a better search experience... it's about not needing search at all.