Agentic AI puts business software model under pressure

Large software-as-a-service providers including Salesforce, ServiceNow and Oracle have come under market pressure as agentic AI tools raise the prospect of reducing businesses’ dependence on traditional cloud applications. These systems, including Anthropic’s Cowork, OpenAI’s Frontier and open-source platforms such as OpenClaw, are designed to act more like digital co-workers that can select tools, make decisions and complete multi-step tasks.

Software-as-a-service platforms remain deeply embedded in company operations, handling areas such as payroll, purchasing, customer relationships and supplier data. AI agents could change that role by allowing workers to describe business problems in plain language and receive working code or automated workflows connected to existing systems, extending recent productivity gains in software development into broader knowledge work.

Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT arrived in November 2022, AI has intensified questions about white-collar work, pricing models and organisational control. The nearly 20% decline in junior software engineering jobs over three years points to the impact of automation, but adoption is likely to be moderated by uneven AI performance, the difficulty of redesigning jobs and processes, and the need to manage regulatory and governance risks.