Why Oracle's Free AI Actually Costs You Control
Oracle's betting enterprises will accept AI agents as baseline functionality.
Oracle wants you to think their "free" AI agents are about generosity, but Steve Miranda's actual message is about lock-in through integration. And for legal teams evaluating AI tools, that cost calculation hides some important risks.
Miranda's claim that Oracle is "the only enterprise software vendor to offer a fully integrated technology stack" sounds like typical vendor positioning until you consider what happens when AI agents start making autonomous business decisions across your entire operation. His examples—agents that handle customer interactions, manage approvals, and make payments—hand over business judgment to systems that learn and adapt.
The "no additional cost" model means these agent capabilities get embedded whether your oversight systems are ready or not. Compare that to vendors who charge extra for AI features—they're giving legal teams more control over rollout schedules and which risks to take on.
Miranda argues that integrated platforms enable better AI performance because agents can "operate more effectively across workflows, grasp business context, adhere to compliance rules." But that integration also creates centralized dependencies and vendor lock-in for systems, making consequential business decisions.
The piece frames this as a competitive necessity—organizations treating AI agents as infrastructure will outpace those treating them as tools. But legal teams should flip that framing: do you have the oversight systems to handle agents making autonomous decisions across integrated business operations? Because Oracle's betting you'll figure that out after deployment.
