{"slug": "kantata-debuts-agent-studio-for-building-custom-ai-agents-in-plain-language", "title": "Kantata debuts Agent Studio for building custom AI agents in plain language", "summary": "Kantata Inc. launched Agent Studio, a tool that lets professional services firms build custom AI agents by describing the job in plain language, with the Expertise Agent assembling and refining each agent inside the Kantata Expertise Engine. The company says the tool removes a \"prompt tax\" of repeated drafting and reformatting, and CEO Michael Speranza said \"AI isn't the differentiator — expertise is.\" Kantata, formed in 2022 after the December 2021 merger of Mavenlink and Kimble Applications, says more than 1,500 organizations run its software, and Agent Studio is available now and in use by customers including Basware Oyj.", "body_md": "### Kantata debuts Agent Studio for building custom AI agents in plain language\n\nProfessional services automation software company [Kantata Inc.](https://www.kantata.com/) today unveiled Agent Studio, a tool that lets services firms build custom artificial intelligence agents by describing the job they want done in plain language.\n\nThe release goes after a problem Kantata says is building in the professional services automation market. Vendors are shipping narrow agents by the dozen, each scoped to a single job such as resourcing or risk reporting.\n\nThe company argues that every new one arrives as another silo to maintain. Kantata sells a single agent that it says carries context across the whole platform. That’s the Expertise Agent, which Kantata launched [in June](https://www.kantata.com/blog/article/kantata-launches-expertise-agent-the-first-ai-superagent-built-for-professional-services) and calls the first AI superagent for professional services.\n\nAgent Studio sits inside the Kantata Expertise Engine and works through conversation. A user describes the job, and the Expertise Agent assembles the new agent and refines it the same way, with every build and edit checked for correctly structured inputs and outputs before it is published.\n\nNobody has to fill in a form or write code. Once live, an agent can be triggered by a person or picked up automatically by a workflow on a single command.\n\nThe intended users are practice leads and delivery directors. Under Agent Studio a standard gets written down once, covering the format, the escalation rules and the outputs a recurring deliverable needs, then applied automatically rather than rebuilt by whoever happens to be staffed that week. Kantata calls the overhead it removes a “prompt tax,” the cycle of drafting and reformatting that a team repeats every time it re-explains the same job to an AI tool.\n\n“When it comes to professional services, AI isn’t the differentiator — expertise is,” Chief Executive Michael Speranza said. “Any vendor can give a firm a tool to build AI agents. But if all you’re doing is automating processes, you’re just racing to the bottom and simply reducing costs, rather than developing differentiation.”\n\nChief Technology Officer Vikas Nehru put the case on governance grounds, calling an agent that improvises “a liability in a business where the same deliverable has to hold up in front of a client every time.”\n\nFinnish invoice automation company Basware Oyj uses Kantata’s software in its own professional services operation. Mark Johnston, its chief customer officer, said he wants his services team with customers rather than “doing documentation, figuring out resourcing and entering their billable time,” and that Kantata lets the firm build agents to absorb that work.\n\nThe announcement cites Forrester Research Inc. on the wider point. Ted Schadler, a vice president and principal analyst at the firm, [has written](https://www.forrester.com/blogs/how-do-you-create-ai-advantage/) that the only durable route to business advantage now runs through putting a company’s own proprietary knowledge and expertise to work in AI models, apps and agents.\n\nAgent Studio is available now and in use by customers, according to Kantata.\n\nKantata launched [in 2022](https://www.kantata.com/blog/article/mavenlink-and-kimble-applications-announce-formation-of-kantata-a-global-supplier-of-purpose-built-technology-for-professional-services-organizations) following the December 2021 merger of Mavenlink and Kimble Applications, a deal Accel-KKR led, and the company says more than 1,500 organizations now run its software.\n\n##### Image: SiliconANGLE/GPT Image 2.5\n\n# A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:\n\nSupport our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. **Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network**, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.\n\n- **15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos** , powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more\n- **11.4k+ theCUBE alumni** — Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network\n\n### Are you an AWS customer?  Support SiliconANGLE financially by buying your AWS services from our Marketplace portal page and links: [https://siliconangle.com/aws-marketplace/](https://siliconangle.com/aws-marketplace/)\n\n##### **About SiliconANGLE Media**\n\n[SiliconANGLE](https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsiliconangle.com%2F&esheet=54119777&newsitemid=20240910506833&lan=en-US&anchor=SiliconANGLE&index=9&md5=646b1b564e2259100a2b8638aab0a552),\n\n[theCUBE Network](https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thecube.net%2F&esheet=54119777&newsitemid=20240910506833&lan=en-US&anchor=theCUBE+Network&index=10&md5=7de2a85f95ab4a4a495cede20b8cb1da),\n\n[theCUBE Research](https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthecuberesearch.com%2F&esheet=54119777&newsitemid=20240910506833&lan=en-US&anchor=theCUBE+Research&index=11&md5=7bb33676722925eb57d588ec343e4f6f),\n\n[CUBE365](https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cube365.net%2F&esheet=54119777&newsitemid=20240910506833&lan=en-US&anchor=CUBE365&index=12&md5=d310fb35919714e66ad8d42c9c0c1bc6),\n\n[theCUBE AI](https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thecubeai.com%2F&esheet=54119777&newsitemid=20240910506833&lan=en-US&anchor=theCUBE+AI&index=13&md5=b8b98472f8071b23ebb10ab9a8dd0683)and theCUBE SuperStudios — with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI.\n\nFounded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kantata-debuts-agent-studio-for-building-custom-ai-agents-in-plain-language", "canonical_source": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/22/kantata-debuts-agent-studio-for-building-custom-ai-agents-in-plain-language/", "published_at": "2026-09-22 12:00:53+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-22 12:22:50.968194+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-products", "artificial-intelligence", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Kantata Inc.", "Agent Studio", "Expertise Agent", "Michael Speranza", "Vikas Nehru", "Basware Oyj", "Mark Johnston", "Forrester Research Inc."], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kantata-debuts-agent-studio-for-building-custom-ai-agents-in-plain-language", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kantata-debuts-agent-studio-for-building-custom-ai-agents-in-plain-language.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kantata-debuts-agent-studio-for-building-custom-ai-agents-in-plain-language.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kantata-debuts-agent-studio-for-building-custom-ai-agents-in-plain-language.jsonld"}}