"Two of the biggest implications for startups they point to: ➡️ The addressable market is not what companies currently spend on software. It's what they spend on workforce. (I'll refrain from commenting on this here, I'll come back in later posts.) ➡️ The capabilities of service-as-software is shifting pricing from price-per-seat to price-per-outcome e.g. new sale, customer service resolution etc." #startups #TAM #AI #futureofwork
Futurist | Board advisor | Global keynote speaker | Humans + AI Leader | Bestselling author | Podcaster | LinkedIn Top Voice | Founder: AHT Group - Informivity - Bondi Innovation
The next phase of "service-as-software" - in which software becomes the worker - will evolve "from simple workflow automation to a System of Agents", according to Foundation Capital, which originally coined the phrase (unless someone can point me to an earlier source?) The thesis is that AI is driving a shift in software being a tool that supports human workflows (software-as-a-service) to becoming an autonomous worker that executes tasks (service-as-software). This is already in process, with agentic AI companies sprouting on all sides. The next stage is a System of Agents. "A System of Agents mirrors a human team, with agents taking on collaborative, specialized tasks and continuously learning from each other, just as human teams do. Where traditional software provides tools and workflows for humans to complete tasks, the System of Agents becomes a System of Work—providing actual decision-making and task execution and ultimately delivering services like a highly-trained team." Specialist agents outperform generalist agents. Every task allocated by an orchestration layer and executed provides data to improve the agents individually and as a system. A well-designed system of agents can beat any existing architecture, and continually improve. Two of the biggest implications for startups they point to: ➡️ The addressable market is not what companies currently spend on software. It's what they spend on workforce. (I'll refrain from commenting on this here, I'll come back in later posts.) ➡️ The capabilities of service-as-software is shifting pricing from price-per-seat to price-per-outcome e.g. new sale, customer service resolution etc. Plenty more detail in the post, link in comments.
Dany DeGrave Yes the relationship will evolve similar to how we hire a new employee and then delegate/assign responsibilities,... . In the context of enterprise supply chains for example, with digitalization we want to operate at digital speeds. Humans cannot work at digital speeds. In supply chains, enterprises want the work to be done at digital speed. That means the human has to be removed from the decision chain. That means the human cannot or does not want to be responsible or accountable for the decisions a digital assistant (DA) makes. AI powered DAs now have more knowledge, cross-functional skills than humans to perform certain supply chain functions with predictability and certainty. I like your "service-as-software" point of view, as that is what a DA is. However, we now have to redefine work done by a human and work done by a DA (service) as a 'hybrid workforce' with clear responsibilities, accountability & ownership. The DAs will be more capable in certain tasks overtime, and humans will do what DAs cannot do including company specific stuff. Hope this helps. Happy to connect and discuss on a live call as this is a complex topic with different contexts in time and views on AI.
Founder at fiChains. Innovating Financial Supply Chains using Digital Assistants.
3moHeaded in the right direction. Digital Assistants transitioning to Digital Employees. In the last 18 months the evolution is converging on Agents doing the work. The inflection point will come when a human delegates or hands off the work along with the decision making. This would mean Accountability, Responsibility,.. ownership is now with a digital employee. We are reaching that point in Supply Chains.