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Salesforce Introduces Flat-Fee AI Licensing Model as Alternative to Usage-Based Pricing

Posted on by Anurag Shukla

San Francisco, CA: Salesforce has introduced a new pricing model called the Agentic Enterprise License Agreement (AELA), offering customers unlimited access to its Agentforce AI agents and Data Cloud for a flat fee – addressing enterprise demand for predictable costs as companies scale artificial intelligence deployments.

The pricing innovation addresses a critical friction point that emerged as vendors rushed to adopt consumption-based models for AI features. While consumption pricing seemed logical for variable AI workloads, CIOs and CFOs found these models ‘unpredictable’ and demanded ‘predictability’ instead, according to Constellation Research analysis.

“AELA is for customers that have already experimented. They’re ready to scale. They want to go all in so we agree on a flat fee, and then it’s a shared risk,” said Miquel Milano, president and chief revenue officer at Salesforce, according to Constellation Research.

The strategic rationale reveals Salesforce’s long-term thinking about customer lifetime value. “If the customers are smart, they can rob the bank. They can really make a great deal out of that. We take the risk because we want our customers to be successful,” Milano explained. “I would love to have a customer where I price an AELA at $5 million incremental, and the customer has deployed so much that the deal is not profitable for me. If the deal isn’t profitable for me, it means that the customer is the happiest customer in the world. And then I have another 20 years to monetize that customer,” he states further.

Salesforce’s “new Agentic Enterprise License Agreement (AELA) gives customers unlimited use of consumption-based products such as Agentforce, Data 360/Data Cloud, and MuleSoft for a fixed fee over two or three years,” according to Forrester Research.

The company executed “16 AELAs in Q3” and “has roughly 100 in the pipeline,” according to Futurum Group analysis of Salesforce’s Q3 FY 2026 earnings, demonstrating enterprise appetite for pricing predictability in AI deployments.

“When we first started with Agentforce, we were talking about, oh, it’s going to be so much per conversation… but customers have pushed for more flexibility,” CEO Marc Benioff said during the company’s recent earnings call, according to TechRadar.

The AELA framework represents a significant departure from traditional SaaS economics. The model provides “unlimited Agentforce into your company, unlimited Data Cloud into your company,” as Benioff explained at Dreamforce 2025. “It’s clear, one pricing model is not right for every company in the era of the agentic enterprise, so we’ve had to radically shift our pricing.”

Industry observers suggest this approach may influence other enterprise software vendors. “In 2026, it’s highly likely you’ll see similar arrangements from SaaS providers,” according to Constellation Research predictions for enterprise technology trends.

The shift comes as enterprise software vendors grapple with a fundamental tension: AI agents can potentially replace user seats, undermining traditional per-seat pricing models. By offering unlimited usage within a flat-fee structure, Salesforce removes the disincentive for customers to deploy agents broadly across their organizations.

Salesforce’s Q3 FY 2026 results demonstrated the strategy’s early traction. The company reported that “Agentforce and Data 360 products” hit “nearly $1.4 billion in ARR – an explosive 114% year-over-year gain,” with “over 9,500 paid Agentforce deals and 3.2 trillion tokens processed,” according to CEO Marc Benioff.

The AELA model also includes flexibility for customers who prefer alternative approaches. “You might want to have an action-based model, you might want to have a flex credit model,” Benioff noted, giving enterprises options based on their specific deployment patterns and financial preferences.

Salesforce also offers “seat-based Agentforce SKUs” which have “gained traction for predictability,” according to Futurum Group analysis, showing that multiple pricing models can coexist as the market matures.

The broader trend reflects what analysts characterize as “agentic enterprise license agreements becoming the norm” as CxOs push back against unpredictable consumption models that complicate budgeting and financial planning.

For Salesforce competitors including Microsoft, ServiceNow, SAP, and Adobe, the AELA approach presents a new competitive consideration as enterprises evaluate AI platform investments and pricing structures.

Software Asset Management Market Set to Reach $13.03 Billion by 2033

Posted on by Shobhit Kalra

Austin, TX : The global Software Asset Management (SAM) market is experiencing explosive growth, with the market valued at “USD 3.87 Billion in 2025E” and “expected to reach USD 13.03 Billion by 2033”, growing at a “CAGR of 17.59% over the forecast period (2026-2033),” according to SNS Insider research.

The dramatic expansion reflects the growing complexity organizations face managing software environments as cloud usage, SaaS subscriptions, virtualization, and hybrid IT infrastructures become ubiquitous across enterprises of all sizes.

“The growing complexity of software environments brought about by cloud usage, SaaS subscriptions, virtualization, and hybrid IT infrastructures is a significant contributor to the growth of the software asset management market,” according to the research report. “Tracking software usage, licenses, renewals, and compliance across several platforms and suppliers is frequently difficult for organizations,” the report further said.

Software asset management solutions address these challenges by providing businesses comprehensive visibility into their software inventory, optimizing license utilization, reducing wasteful expenditure, and helping organizations avoid costly compliance fines that can result from improper licensing.

The United States leads the global market, with the “U.S. software asset management market size” projected to grow from “USD 1.05 Billion in 2025E” to “USD 3.47 Billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 16.13% from 2026 to 2033”, according to the research.

“The necessity for cost-effective licensing management, strict compliance rules, and the extensive deployment of corporate software are driving the rapid expansion of the U.S.” SAM market, the report stated.

The increased emphasis on IT cost minimization and effective resource allocation is accelerating SAM adoption across businesses of all sizes. With enterprises increasingly scrutinizing software spending amid economic uncertainty, tools that provide granular visibility into license usage and renewal cycles have become essential for CFOs and CIOs alike.

Major technology vendors are recognizing the strategic importance of software asset management integration. In March 2025, “Microsoft announced a strategic partnership with ServiceNow to integrate Azure & Microsoft SAM capabilities into the Now Platform, enabling automated license optimization and governance for enterprise software estates,” according to the report.

The research identified several key metrics driving the market:

Software Asset Visibility & Deployment Metrics – Organizations are increasingly demanding comprehensive tracking of software assets across enterprises, with deployment trends spanning on-premise, cloud, and hybrid SAM platforms.

Capacity Utilization & Service Delivery Rates – The market has matured significantly, with enterprise focus on assessing utilization levels of SAM tool vendors and managed service providers, indicating improved service scalability.

Regulatory, Licensing & Audit Compliance Index – Heightened regulatory scrutiny has elevated the importance of adhering to software licensing laws, with organizations prioritizing audit readiness, data privacy regulations, and minimizing non-compliance incidence rates.

Investment, ROI & Financial Performance Insights – Funding activity has increased substantially, with organizations analyzing CAPEX trends, platform expansion strategies, and return on investment from license optimization programs.

The report highlights that major players in the SAM market include Broadcom Inc., IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, ServiceNow, and Flexera, among others. These vendors are investing heavily in AI-powered capabilities that can automatically detect shadow IT, identify unused licenses, and recommend optimization strategies.

Industry analysts note that the shift toward subscription-based SaaS models has paradoxically increased the complexity of software management. While cloud solutions eliminate physical installation overhead, they introduce new challenges around user provisioning, access management, and tracking consumption across multiple vendor platforms.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated cloud and SaaS adoption, creating a perfect storm of license sprawl that many organizations are still working to rationalize. Remote work patterns have further complicated software usage tracking, as employees access applications from multiple devices and locations.

Market Context: The SAM market growth reflects broader trends in enterprise software, where visibility, governance, and cost optimization have become board-level priorities amid pressure to demonstrate clear ROI from technology investments.

Salesforce–OpenAI Partnership: SaaS Consultant on AI Agent Integration

Posted on by Shobhit Kalra

NEW YORK: The strategic partnership between Salesforce and OpenAI announced at Dreamforce 2025 represents a fundamental shift in how SaaS platforms must architect their business operations around AI agents, according to analysis from Vivek Sharma, founder of Vyver Consulting Group and the technology executive who coined the term ‘marketecture’.

In commentary shared via social media this week, Sharma stated the Salesforce-OpenAI collaboration ‘marked the beginning of the Agentic Enterprise’ where AI agents stopped being ‘features’ and became the connective tissue between product, data, partnerships, and GTM (go-to-market).”

The October 2025 partnership announcement integrated OpenAI’s GPT-5 frontier models directly into Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 platform, allowing enterprises to access CRM data, query sales records, and build Tableau visualizations through conversational interfaces in ChatGPT. Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce, described the integration as “the trusted foundation for companies to become Agentic Enterprises,” according to the company’s official press release.

Four-Point Framework for Ecosystem Leadership

Sharma, whose nearly two-decade career spans leadership roles at AWS, CA Technologies, Magic Leap, and Vonage before founding Vyver Consulting, outlined four strategic imperatives for SaaS companies to capture ecosystem value in 2026:

strategies-for-saas

1. Define Your Marketecture: Sharma emphasized that “your product, your partners, and your customer workflows must live in one strategic map,” warning that “no alignment means no ecosystem.” The term “marketecture” – which Sharma coined – refers to the strategic architectural map that connects products, partnerships, and customer value flows into a cohesive visual framework.

2. Choose the Right Partnership Model: The consultant warned that “referral is not enough, resell is not always scalable, and managed service doesn’t fit everyone,” stressing that “your partner model must match what you’re trying to monetize.” This challenges the one-size-fits-all approach many SaaS companies currently employ.

3. Build Enablement and Governance Early: Sharma stated that “roles, KPIs, integration ownership, revenue attribution – all must be clear from day one,” emphasizing that governance frameworks cannot be effectively retrofitted after partnerships are already operational.

4. Treat Partnerships Like Repeatable Systems: The analysis stressed partnerships must be “systems, not launches, not projects,” arguing that “the teams that master repeatability will capture most of the 2026 ecosystem upside.”

The Salesforce-OpenAI Blueprint

The Salesforce-OpenAI integration demonstrates the shift from traditional point-and-click enterprise software to multi-surface, agent-driven conversational platforms. The partnership enables bidirectional operations where users can create leads, update opportunities, and trigger agent workflows directly from ChatGPT conversations while maintaining enterprise security through Salesforce’s Trust Layer.

Sam Altman, Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, stated the partnership is “about making the tools people use every day work better together, so work feels more natural and connected,” according to Salesforce’s announcement.

The collaboration extends beyond OpenAI to include integrations with Anthropic’s Claude for regulated industries, Google’s Gemini models, and AWS infrastructure, establishing what Salesforce positions as a model-agnostic platform. According to Salesforce’s December 2025 earnings report, Agentforce has become the company’s “fastest growing product ever,” with thousands of customer deployments completed in its first year.

The partnership also introduced the Agentic Commerce Protocol in collaboration with Stripe, enabling merchants to sell directly to ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly users while maintaining control of customer data and relationships.

Market Context and Ecosystem Economics

The global SaaS market, valued at $273.55 billion in 2023, is projected to reach $1,228.87 billion by 2032, creating intense competition among over 30,000 SaaS companies worldwide. Research from Canalys indicates that 70% of SaaS organizations report significant benefits from partnerships, with platform integrations capable of reducing customer acquisition costs by 30% while expanding market reach.

Major SaaS vendors have announced partner-led growth strategies in response to these dynamics. ServiceNow announced plans to add 250,000 new partners and significantly increase partner revenue, while Workday committed to doubling partner capacity by fiscal 2026, according to industry research from Canalys.

The technology consulting market is forecast to surpass $400 billion in 2026 with 7% revenue growth, driven by enterprise demand for expertise in implementing agentic AI systems, according to Source Global Research analysis published in December 2025.

ServiceNow Partners with OpenAI to Enhance Enterprise AI Capabilities

Posted on by Yashika Aneja

Santa Clara, CA: ServiceNow announced Tuesday a strategic partnership with OpenAI to integrate advanced artificial intelligence capabilities into its enterprise workflow automation platform, marking the latest move by major software companies to embed frontier AI models into their products.

According to CNBC Technology News, the deal will see ServiceNow incorporate OpenAI’s AI technology to boost its software stack, enabling more sophisticated automation and intelligent decision-making across customer service, IT operations, and enterprise workflow management.

This collaboration represents a significant strategic partnership between one of the leading enterprise workflow platforms and the company behind ChatGPT to boost its AI software stack.

The collaboration comes as enterprise software providers race to integrate generative AI and large language models into their platforms, responding to customer demand for more intelligent automation tools. Competitors including Salesforce, Microsoft, and SAP have also announced significant AI integrations in recent months.

Industry analysts view the ServiceNow-OpenAI partnership as particularly significant given ServiceNow’s position as a leading workflow automation platform used by major corporations globally. The integration could accelerate AI adoption in enterprise IT operations, human resources, and customer service departments.

Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed. ServiceNow, which has a market capitalization exceeding $150 billion, has been investing heavily in AI research and development over the past two years, recognizing that intelligent automation represents the future of enterprise software.

The announcement follows similar moves by enterprise software leaders to partner with or build their own AI capabilities. Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI and deeply integrated the technology into its productivity suite, while Salesforce has developed its own AI models through its Einstein platform alongside strategic partnerships.

According to Tech Startups, “OpenAI says its near-term strategy is to close the gap between what frontier systems can do and how organizations actually deploy them at scale,” suggesting this partnership aims to bridge the divide between AI capability and practical enterprise implementation.

OpenAI, valued at over $150 billion in its most recent funding round, continues expanding its enterprise partnerships as it seeks to diversify revenue beyond its consumer ChatGPT product. The company has established partnerships with major corporations across technology, financial services, and healthcare sectors.

ServiceNow customers can expect to see enhanced AI capabilities rolled out throughout 2026, with features likely including intelligent ticket routing, automated problem resolution, natural language interfaces for workflow management, and predictive analytics for IT operations.