The Next Big AI Shift Is Selling Digital Workers-As-A-Service

Software-as-a-service has defined the way we use computers for more than a decade, and we’re all used to how it works.

Rather than owning a version of an app that will be out of date in a few months, we subscribe to the latest version. We’re always up to date, and the software vendor has a recurring revenue stream.

Agentic AI-as-a-Service, however, is more than just another “as-a-service”. Rather than subscribing to tools, businesses can now subscribe to autonomous AI agents that do work for us.

Agents are set to take on increasingly sophisticated jobs, including resolving customer support issues from start to finish, monitoring and protecting against cyber threats and autonomously managing inventory, billing and logistics processes.

But adoption is hampered due to technological and cultural challenges. Research suggests that so far, most efforts are exploratory, with Capgemini finding that while 26 percent of organizations have launched pilots, just two percent have deployed agents at scale.

Could the fact that a growing number of vendors are now offering AAIaaS be the fix for this? Subscribing to agents built and managed by others allows you to skip many of the technological hurdles.

And signing up for cloud services often streamlines many processes around security, governance and regulation, aspects of which are often delegated to the service provider.

So is AAIaaS set to transform every area of business? And why should preparing for this change be top of the agenda for leaders and professionals today? Read on to find out.

From New Technology To New Business Models

What really makes AAIaaS a powerful model is that it dramatically lowers the barriers to both piloting and scaling agentic initiatives.

Smaller organizations are often drivers of innovation. With AAIaaS they can access the same agentic opportunities as far larger competitors, generating competitive advantage.

This means anyone can use it to create more efficient processes. From hiring (managing repetitive hiring processes such as compiling candidate profiles and scheduling interviews end-to-end) to accounting (billing, filling in tax forms and chasing invoices) and every business function in between.

But the most innovative users will create entirely new business models. This is where AAIaaS could really help differentiate winners from runners-up.

This might involve packaging up existing assets like data or a distribution network and creating AI services that customers will pay to access/

Or it could mean offering agentic services directly to your own customers. For example, a marketing agency could rent out ninja marketing agents to work on its clients’ accounts, or a super-smart lawyer agent to effectively act as a legal department for a small business.

Google and Amazon emerged as leaders from the dot-com wave, while Salesforce and Slack grew because of cloud SaaS. Similarly, AI creates opportunities for any business starting up today to become a global leader in a hugely valuable new field. For leaders without the budgets for on-premises AI infrastructure, AAIaaS could be the way to make that happen.

Here’s Why You Should Act Now On AAIaaS

So does this mean solopreneurs can use agents to replace every skill they don’t have, or companies can start firing entire departments and replacing them with robots?

Well, no. For a huge number of roles, including taking oversight of all the agentic activity we’ve talked about, or anything involving real creativity or long-term strategy, humans will still be essential.

But that doesn’t mean that most human jobs won’t change massively when anyone can build and deploy a digital co-worker in the time it takes to write its instructions.

In operations, the focus shifts from managing manual processes and workflows to setting strategic goals and guardrails and letting your assistants handle the routine decisions.

If your job is procuring enterprise software, you can focus on efficiency, connectivity and risk, rather than how accessible or user-friendly a tool is, if it’s generally going to be used by agents.

For leaders, it’s clear that now is the time to act on integrating AAIaaS into your business strategy. Even if you don’t plan on doing anything, you’ll need plans and processes in place to react when competitors inevitably do.

The good news is that we know almost all organizations are still in the early stages, so it’s not too late. But once the formula for success is more widely known, don’t expect the window to stay open for long.

AAIaaS brings challenges and requires a commitment to culture shift, new ways of working, and new governance models. But it also unlocks potentially the most exciting business opportunity of the next decade, and no one can afford to ignore it.