Microsoft exec suggests AI agents will need to buy software licenses, just like employees
www.businessinsider.com
Are AI agents employees or tools? A Microsoft exec suggested they're new paid "seats," a shift that could reshape SaaS pricing — and spark pushback.

Buried in the story was a deceptively simple question: does your AI agent count as an employee?

At a recent conference, Microsoft executive Rajesh Jha floated a provocative idea. In a future where companies deploy fleets of AI agents, those agents may need their own identities — logins, inboxes, and even seats inside software systems. If so, AI wouldn’t shrink software revenue. It could expand it.

  • CatAssTrophy@safest.spaceEnglish
    162·
    19 hours ago

    This gets close to an idea I heard long ago that I think has some merit.

    Hire an employee? You must not only pay them, but cover taxes to have them there. Buy a robot to replace them? It’s a business expense, no taxes!

    Okay, pay taxes for your robot usage. Use that money to fund UBI, social programs and/or retraining people for other jobs.

    • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      10·
      19 hours ago

      Then they’ll just make one robot do multiple things. Suddenly the big company only has one taxable employee.

      • CatAssTrophy@safest.spaceEnglish
        6·
        16 hours ago

        Depends. If the tax is based on jobs replaced, not the abstractly defined number of robots that exist, it would have an impact. Also, monolithic solutions tend to be inherently less efficient than similarly developed defined ones, so limiting the robot models for a tax benefit would have another limit on their efficiency.

        It’s an issue that could be accounted for, if there were sufficient political will. If taxes from automation were committed to public good, there would likely be pretty widespread acceptance.