For the last decade, the solution to every business problem was: “Buy another SaaS tool.” Need to manage leads? Buy Salesforce. Need to track bugs? Buy Jira. This created the “SaaS Bloat” crisis. The average enterprise now pays for 300+ subscriptions, many costing $100+ per user/month.
In 2026, AI is reversing this trend. We are entering the era of “Bring Your Own Intelligence” (BYOI).
The Logic: Seat-Based vs. Token-Based
Most B2B software is just a fancy database with a user interface (UI) so humans can click buttons.
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The Cost: You pay for the UI (The “Seat”).
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The Shift: Large Action Models (LAMs) don’t need the UI. They can interact directly with the database or the API.
Example:
Instead of buying 50 expensive “Customer Support” licenses for a ticketing platform, you can build a custom Support Agent that reads from your SQL database and emails customers directly.
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Cost of SaaS: $5,000/month.
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Cost of AI Tokens: $400/month.
The CFO’s Opportunity
This is the single biggest OPEX reduction opportunity of the decade.
We are seeing companies “hollow out” their software stack—keeping the core database (the System of Record) but cancelling the expensive “User Interface” licenses, replacing them with custom AI Agents that interface with the data directly.
The Risks
- Maintenance: Building your own AI tools means you are now a software company. You have to maintain the code.
- User Experience: SaaS tools have nice dashboards. Custom AI tools might just be a chat window.
Actionable Takeaway
Audit your software bill. Identify any tool where you are paying for >50 seats primarily for data entry or retrieval. These are prime candidates for AI replacement.
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