Sep. 18 at 5:48 PM
For decades, software pricing rested on a fairly simple idea - the seat. A company paid for one, and a person sat in it, used the software, did the work and was accountable for the result. AI agents make that relationship much less tidy.
$CRM now charges for AI through a mix of credits, conversations and user licenses, sometimes within the same product. Microsoft tested charging for each agent during the Agent 365 preview, then changed course at general release and licensed the humans responsible for them instead. Then there is Delos. The Paris startup takes the idea in a different direction. Its product asks customers to “hire your first one.”
We looked at why Microsoft changed its model, what Salesforce’s pricing says about where value is moving, and four signals that could show whether the software seat survives the shift to agents.
https://industrycontents.com/ai-agents-breaking-saas-user-definition/