Agentic AI may put $234 bn of SaaS spending at risk by 2030: Gartner

AI agents that complete tasks across multiple applications could upend the traditional software licensing model, forcing vendors to shift from selling user licences to delivering business outcomes

Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) could put as much as $234 billion of enterprise application software spending at risk by 2030 as businesses increasingly rely on autonomous AI agents instead of employees directly using software, research and advisory firm Gartner said in a report on Tuesday.

 

The amount represents around 20 per cent of global enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) spending by the end of the decade, according to Gartner.

 

The firm said the disruption stems from what it calls "agentic arbitrage"—a shift in which AI agents perform tasks across multiple enterprise applications, reducing the need for users to interact with individual software interfaces.

 

 

“Agentic AI changes the economics of software,” said George Brocklehurst, managing vice-president at Gartner. “Agentic systems deliver outcomes directly, bypassing traditional user experience (UX)-heavy applications and making the software invisible. This breaks the link between user growth and revenue growth for many enterprise software vendors.”

 

The trend threatens the long-standing SaaS business model, under which vendors typically charge customers based on the number of employees using their software. If AI agents increasingly execute workflows on behalf of workers, enterprises may require fewer user licences.

 

This is less an apocalypse and more of a metamorphosis. SaaS will not be destroyed; it will emerge in a different form,” Gartner said.

 

It said the enterprise buyers are prioritising investments in AI systems that deliver measurable business outcomes, rather than purchasing feature-rich applications.

 

“As organisations increasingly use agentic AI systems, the user interface is no longer a differentiation,” said Brocklehurst. “Legacy SaaS market share will be cannibalised by incumbents and taken by new entrants delivering horizontal agentic platforms.”

 

The report said the software companies will need to embed agentic capabilities into their products, retain customer-specific knowledge and move towards outcome-based pricing to remain competent.