Microsoft exec suggests AI agents will need to buy software licenses, just like employees
www.businessinsider.com
Are AI agents employees or tools? A Microsoft exec suggested they're new paid "seats," a shift that could reshape SaaS pricing — and spark pushback.

Buried in the story was a deceptively simple question: does your AI agent count as an employee?

At a recent conference, Microsoft executive Rajesh Jha floated a provocative idea. In a future where companies deploy fleets of AI agents, those agents may need their own identities — logins, inboxes, and even seats inside software systems. If so, AI wouldn’t shrink software revenue. It could expand it.

  • catdog@lemmy.mlEnglish
    7·
    7 hours ago

    So if I use Windows pre-installed Copilot, I need to buy two Office Licenses, a Copilot subscription, and a Windows license?

    • forrgott@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      4 hours ago

      Yes. But actually, no.

      This is about enterprise licensing, not retail (home users). But otherwise, yeah, that’s the basic idea they’re proposing.

      When it comes to a consumer using Copilot, it’s all about having a new way to manipulate you into voluntarily handing them more of your personal data (which they will sell on the scummy as hell market created just for enabling surveillance capitalism).