08 — Foundation Paper
The full research paper establishing Autonomy Economics and the Agentic Profit Paradox.
SSRN · April 2026 · 145 Pages
Elemi Atigolo · Independent · April 21, 2026
Author
Elemi Atigolo
Date
April 2026
Pages
145
Repository
SSRN
Abstract
Firms operating in environments shaped by autonomous capability face a structural problem that efficiency narratives do not capture. As autonomous capability makes it possible to carry activity forward, mediate interaction, and access capability with less dependence on the conditions that once made established commercial structures scarce and defensible, those structures become less durable, even when demand remains strong or increases and capability improves.
This paper establishes Autonomy Economics as the field that examines this reorganisation by analysing how autonomous capability affects value capture, revenue durability, and commercial defensibility. Its central mechanism is the Agentic Profit Paradox, which arises when autonomous capability weakens the conditions that make a commercial unit scarce and defensible while value capture remains anchored to those earlier conditions.
What the paper develops
A mathematical representation of the relationship between autonomous capability, structural alignment, and profit, showing that capability and alignment are complements. Neither produces economic gain in the absence of the other.
Directional regularities describing how value moves from production to orchestration, from access to outcomes, and toward the layers that absorb, govern, and direct autonomous throughput.
The structural conditions through which autonomous capability weakens existing commercial units: Human-Bounded Progression, Human-Bounded Interaction, and Capability Scarcity Dependence.
Frameworks for assessing the resilience of revenue models and the durability of firm-level advantage as capability and commercial structure move out of alignment.
Cases from handloom weaving to containerisation, electronic trading, e-discovery, and cloud transitions, showing that the migration of value is a recurring structural condition across transformative technologies, not a conjecture about the future.
Examination of how the mechanism appears across software, professional services, financial institutions, legal, consulting, private equity, and private credit.
Keywords
JEL Classification
B41 · B59 · O33 · L20 · M21 · D21
Suggested citation
Atigolo, Elemi, The Agentic Profit Paradox and the Reorganisation of Value Capture (April 21, 2026). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6624558