TL;DR

Salesforce has shifted its AI agent pricing from per-conversation to seat-based licensing after customer pushback. While this offers cost predictability, analysts warn that embedded usage caps and “AI units” ensure vendors retain control. The move signals customers are adopting AI to augment workers rather than replace them.

Customers Push Back on Usage-Based AI Pricing

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff announced that seat-based pricing is becoming the norm for its AI agents after the company initially explored consumption and per-conversation payment models. The shift comes as Gartner forecasts agentic AI could drive 30% of enterprise application software revenue by 2035, surpassing $450 billion.

“When we first started with Agentforce, we were talking about charging so much per conversation. It was this type of pricing, maybe transaction-based pricing, usage-based pricing, but customers have pushed for more flexibility,” Benioff explained.

The switch reflects a cautious approach from enterprise buyers. “Customers still adopt a cautious approach to investing in GenAI because of the unpredictability of pricing models,” Jan Cook, senior software licensing expert at Gartner, told The Register.

Hidden Complexity Behind Simple Pricing

Despite the return to familiar seat-based models, vendors have embedded safeguards. Most include secondary metrics like “AI units” or provisioned credit limits. If usage exceeds these caps, customers must purchase additional credits.

“Seat-based licenses come with ‘fair use limits,’ meaning it’s not truly unlimited, but it allows vendors some ability to control the impact of potential overuse of GenAI solutions,” Cook explained.

This hybrid approach lets IT departments budget predictably whilst vendors protect their margins on underlying large language model costs.

Looking Forward

The pricing debate reveals a broader truth about current AI adoption: enterprises are arming workers with AI rather than replacing them. “If there was going to be a mass seat shrinkage issue, that would have emerged by now and customers would be renegotiating contracts on lower seat volumes. We haven’t seen that to any significant extent,” Cook noted.

For technology leaders, the challenge extends beyond implementation to monitoring pricing meters that may be skewed toward vendor margins.

Source: The Register