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Наталя ХандусенкоAI Eng
11 April 2026, 10:20
2026-04-11
Microsoft top manager believes AI agents need to buy software licenses on a par with humans
At a recent conference, Microsoft executive Rajesh Jha expressed a provocative idea. In a future where companies deploy entire fleets of AI agents, these agents may need their own identities — logins, mailboxes, and even separate “workspaces” within software systems. If this is indeed the case, then artificial intelligence will not reduce the profits of software developers, but on the contrary — will help increase them.
At a recent conference, Microsoft executive Rajesh Jha expressed a provocative idea. In a future where companies deploy entire fleets of AI agents, these agents may need their own identities — logins, mailboxes, and even separate “workspaces” within software systems. If this is indeed the case, then artificial intelligence will not reduce the profits of software developers, but on the contrary — will help increase them.
“Each of these embodied agents is a potential ‘job,’” Jha said, describing a future where organizations will have more AI agents than humans. Each such agent effectively becomes a separate user for whom you have to pay a software license, or, in professional jargon, pay a “seat,” Business Insider writes .
It’s a radical twist in the SaaS pricing debate that’s been raging for companies like Microsoft, Salesforce, and Workday. Investors worry that AI could disrupt the “seat-based” pricing model that underpins enterprise software. After all, if one person can manage dozens of agents, why pay for dozens of licenses?
Rajesh Jha's answer is: because these agents are the new users. Today, a company with 20 employees can buy 20 Microsoft 365 licenses. If each employee gets five AI agents and the staff is reduced to 10 people, that could still mean 50 paid "seats."
Not everyone believes this.
Nenad Miličević, a partner at AlixPartners, predicts the opposite. In his opinion, AI agents will reduce the number of people interacting with the software, which will lead to a sharp reduction in the number of licenses. Instead of 20 employees, you could have one person overseeing several agents. Such a change will put pressure on software vendors and give customers the opportunity to challenge pricing that no longer makes sense.
Miličević argues that open platforms will be the winners. Companies can try to charge extra for access to machines, but they risk losing customers to competitors that allow agents to operate freely.
This brings us back to the main contradiction: if AI agents are just an extension of your capabilities, then paying for them extra is seen as double billing. If they are autonomous workers, then paying for them may become inevitable.
The answer to this question could define the economics of software for the next decade.
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