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ZDNET's key takeaways
Per-seat software licenses may soon be obsolete.
Most software will soon be purchased by agents.
Prepare for consumption-based pricing models.
Goodbye, per-seat software licensing? Goodbye, software as a service? Vendors ahead in the artificial intelligence (AI) space -- the OpenAIs, the Anthropics -- may begin to eat application vendors' lunches, forcing the latter to restructure how they deliver and charge for solutions.
That's the gist of a McKinsey analysis of the disruptive new structure of the software industry, essentially marking the beginning of the "post-SaaS" era. AI agent-to-agent interactions will deliver software and services, ultimately leading to the decline of the per-seat pricing model, which has been the standard for software licensing for decades.
Also: 6 essential rules for unleashing AI on your software development process - and the No. 1 risk
The new model will be based on outcome- or usage-based models, the McKinsey team, led by Jeremy Schneider, stated. "It is a foundational shift redefining what software is, who builds it, who uses it, and how companies are organized and operate."
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