The enterprise software market will move from <seat economics to decision econom
By Deepishadwani · October 6, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
The enterprise software market will move from <seat economics to decision economics>
For decades, enterprise software has been sold on a simple assumption: one person needs one seat
A salesperson needs a CRM seat.
A service agent needs a service seat.
A manager needs an analytics seat.
The commercial model reflected a world in which valuable work happened when a human opened an application, reviewed information, and took an action.
That assumption is starting to weaken.
An AI agent does not fit neatly into the old model:
> It may read customer history
> classify a request
> prepare a recommendation
> update a record, trigger a workflow
> and escalate an exception without occupying a traditional user seat.
The important unit is no longer only the user.
It is the decision.
~ How many decisions is the system making?
~ What commercial value is attached to them?
~ What level of authority is required?
~ How reversible are they?
~ What is the cost when the decision is wrong?
This will change how companies think about software architecture, licensing, governance, and ROI.
A low-risk decision, such as summarising a customer conversation, can happen at enormous scale with limited commercial exposure.
A high-risk decision, such as approving a credit exception, changing a contract term, or issuing a refund, carries a completely different level of responsibility even if it happens only a few times each day.
Treating both as “AI usage” will be too simplistic.
The future enterprise platform will need to understand decision classes, not just user roles.
Which decisions can be automated?
Which decisions require review?
Which decisions should be logged for audit?
Which decisions can be reversed?
Which decisions create a customer commitment that the company must honour later?
This is why I think the next major shift in enterprise software will not be a feature battle.
It will be a shift from managing access to applications toward managing authority to act.