Agentic AI and the Fax Machine
Congratulating Grant Verstandig and the team at Trase on a $107M seed round led by ARCH Venture Partners, Pamir co-founder Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. made a broader point about where agentic AI actually creates value.
Consider the fax machine.
Duke Health's Division of Cardiology, he notes, receives thousands of faxes each month — each one requiring nurses and staff to read, route, and re-key by hand. It is exactly the kind of unglamorous, high-stakes workflow where agentic AI can strip out friction without stripping out judgment: modernizing critical operations across healthcare and other regulated, mission-critical environments.
It is a thesis close to Pamir's own. The most durable AI companies will not just demo well — they will quietly rebuild the plumbing that essential industries run on.