AI harnesses are the new secret to agentic system success

In agentic AI systems, the 'harness' — the scaffolding that gives models tools, skills, and access to enterprise data — is increasingly more important than the underlying model itself. As model capabilities converge (all reasoning, all multimodal, all strong), the harness becomes the differentiating factor. A poor harness will undermine even the best model, while a good harness can extract meaningful results from a weaker model. Models are swappable; harnesses are not.