How AI agents are changing the way you buy software

Podcast/Substack · ~36 min · Listen · (gathered 2026-10-05)

• AI agents are fundamentally reshaping software procurement by “pulling apart” traditional subscriptions into three distinct components: data, screens (interfaces), and workflows, each now requiring separate strategic decisions.
• Buyers must strategically decide which capabilities to continue purchasing, where to invest internal engineering effort, and how much flexibility they need to adopt future, improved AI models.
• Leadership teams should actively learn from employees already using agents to understand their workflow choices, which will inform what to standardize and what to renew.
• Companies need to determine where owning a workflow provides a competitive advantage (e.g., candidate search) versus where it’s more efficient to keep buying a service (e.g., payroll).