AI Agents Are Ending Traditional SaaS (And Big Players are Prepared)

We’re at a quiet turning point in enterprise software — and it’s not the influencers calling it. It’s the leaders of the world’s biggest tech companies. 

Leaders like Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Christian Klein (SAP), Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot), Sridhar Ramaswamy (Snowflake), Bill McDermott (ServiceNow), and Adam Evans (Salesforce) are all pointing in the same direction: AI agents are reshaping what software even means. 

And it’s not just about architecture. This shift is challenging the entire SaaS model.  So… what comes next? 

Let’s explore where SaaS is heading in the age of agentic AI — and what it means for the platforms we rely on today. 

From SaaS to “Suite-as-a-Service” 

But let’s rewind a bit. For the last two decades, business software has meant SaaS. Apps like Salesforce, SAP, and ServiceNow replaced on-premise systems with slick cloud dashboards. You log in, click through tabs, manage workflows. Good times. 

The premise of SaaS—that humans are the users—is being rewritten. AI agents are stepping in as the users. As Christian Klein, SAP’s CEO, put it at Sapphire: 

“It’s not just about automation—it’s about transformation driven by real-time insight and intelligent action.” 

At the heart of SAP’s vision is Joule: an AI agent not just bolted onto apps but embedded across workflows. It pulls from your internal data, listens for signals across external sources, and acts.  

This way, what used to take a team of analysts now happens in seconds—with zero tabs open. But SAP’s not just thinking about Joule in SAP apps. Thanks to its acquisition of WalkMe, Joule agents can operate in any software. It’s omnipresent. You don’t log in to use it—it shows where you are. 

But this isn’t SaaS 2.0. It’s something else entirely. SAP calls it the “Suite-as-a-Service” model, in which: 

• Apps generate data 

• AI agents consume that data 

• Agents act on it, improving the system in real time 

It’s a compounding loop, not a menu of features. 

“Agents Are the New Apps” 

Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot dropped this line during their INBOUND keynote. 

Instead of humans logging into CRMs, bouncing between email platforms, and scheduling meetings, AI agents now handle content creation, personalization, scheduling, and even analytics. It’s like giving every team their own marketer, copywriter, and strategist—without onboarding anyone. 

And Salesforce’s EVP & GM, Adam Evans, agrees. “Wave 3 of AI is here,” he said. “And it’s agents.” But, as we have said in many other editions, this is part of a broader rethinking of business logic.  

As Microsoft’s Satya Nadella explained, most business software is just a “database with rules.” AI agents don’t need an interface. They don’t need you to click through menus. They understand the rules—and then they act. 

For example, imagine an Excel sheet that doesn’t just show your Q3 sales dip, but rewrites the forecast, sends a note to procurement, and updates your CRM—all based on what should happen next. That’s the new tier of enterprise architecture. 

From Copilots to Commanders 

To borrow another metaphor: AI started as a copilot—there to assist. But increasingly, it’s becoming the pilot. As Nadella put it, we’re moving from “copilots to agents.” From suggestion to orchestration. From helping to handling. 

However, this shift isn’t just technical, it’s cultural. That’s why we must think in new systems that give us more control and visibility on AI agents behavior, avoiding the black-box problem. So, on the foundations of our new AI systems we’ll need: 

• New governance models: Who monitors the agents? 

• Agent observability: What actions were taken? Why? 

• New job roles: AgentOps, prompt architects, AI supervisors 

But the biggest change is to stop thinking about apps altogether. Because soon, you won’t be “using software” the way you do now. So, whether you’re in marketing, finance, logistics, or operations, this shift affects you.  

Meanwhile, companies like SAP, Microsoft, ServiceNow, and Salesforce are racing to build the foundation for this new reality. And at Inclusion Cloud, we're already helping businesses integrate and scale these agentic systems. 

We’re not here to patch workflows. We’re setting the foundations for organizations to rethink how work gets done. 

Want to know more? Let’s have a meeting!