Revaluing the Human Linchpin in Enterprise Operations

This is an online copy of our weekly newsletter, written by Constellation's Chief Distiller and Board Advisor Esteban Kolsky, shares curious and interesting insights and data points distilled from enterprise technology to identify what’s notable. If you'd like to get this newsletter in your inbox weekly, Subscribe here.

In this issue, we examine a structural shift in enterprise software emerging across pricing, process design, and workforce assumptions. The focus is not on AI as a generic disruption story, but on how agentic AI is beginning to replace the human linchpin that held fragmented systems together, and why that is forcing both vendors and enterprises to rethink what software is worth.

First, my take.

For the last two decades, enterprise software has operated within tolerable inefficiencies. Every broken handoff, every mismatched data model, every approval loop spread across multiple systems held together by a human linchpin. That person sat between applications, reconciled records in spreadsheets, moved data from one screen to another, and made fragmented software look like an end-to-end process.

That operating model is now under pressure from both supply and demand in the software market. On the supply side, AI is forcing vendors to rethink how they price and package software, as the old seat model breaks down when software starts to perform work rather than simply support it. McKinsey describes this shift directly: AI is turning software into a platform that “actively performs and orchestrates work,” and as that happens, vendors will need to incorporate more consumption-based pricing into their business models. McKinsey also notes that the addressable market now extends beyond IT budgets into labor budgets, which is why pricing has become unstable so quickly.

On the demand side, enterprises have begun to realize that the SaaSpocalypse is not a collapse of vendors but rather a repricing event. Buyers are no longer evaluating software only as a collection of features or seats. They are starting to ask what work gets completed, what cycle time is reduced, and what labor dependencies can be reduced. McKinsey’s research shows that only 30 percent of companies have published quantifiable ROI in dollar terms from real AI deployments, while many are already facing higher IT costs and still cannot cleanly reduce labor costs. That is an unsustainable position for both vendors and buyers. Deloitte’s recent reporting points in the same direction from the enterprise side, with 65 percent of executives saying they are consolidating SaaS vendors.

This is where the linchpin becomes strategically important. AI is not simply replacing workers in the abstract. It is replacing a specific kind of work: the connective work that existed because enterprise architecture was never truly cohesive. Agentic AI matters because it can now absorb parts of that orchestration layer across systems, workflows, and decisions. McKinsey’s latest work on agentic organizations argues that the real barrier is no longer the model itself but the redesign of workflows, leadership, and culture around an agentic world. AI is not the original cause of the change; it is the accelerator making the human linchpin role economically harder to defend.

There is already a practical version of this in the market. Accenture’s BBVA case is useful because it shows what happens when the linchpin function is built into the platform rather than delegated to people. BBVA reduced client onboarding from a few days to a few minutes. That shift contributed to 150 percent growth in new customers. Nearly 50 million customers now interact with the bank through digital channels, seven in ten sales are digital, and the bank’s cost-to-income ratio fell to 43 percent, 17 percentage points below the European average. The pattern matters more than the sector: when the connective layer becomes digital, the economics of processes change. New economies have new value chains and new value propositions.

That is the real meaning of the SaaSpocalypse. It is the point at which enterprises can demand more value from every software dollar and force vendors to price for work completed, not software occupied. The old premium attached to fragmentation is fading. The next premium will go to software that operates across ecosystems, to people who redesign processes rather than manually bridge them, and to enterprises disciplined enough to convert automation into measurable business value. AI accelerated that turning point. The market is now pricing it in and revaluing the different pieces.

Here are some reading resources:

1. Deloitte explains how agentic AI is pushing enterprise software away from static seat pricing toward models tied to usage, orchestration, and business value.
2. McKinsey lays out why AI changes SaaS monetization, arguing that software is moving from supporting work to performing and orchestrating work.
3. Accenture shows how platform strategy, ecosystem design, and agentic AI are converging, with stronger ROI going to companies that align business, AI, and platform decisions.
4. IBM frames agentic AI as an operating-model change that moves enterprises beyond task automation toward redesigning how decisions and workflows are executed)
5. IBM also focuses on how agentic AI can extend automation across end-to-end business processes, reducing handoffs and increasing process speed and adaptability.
6. Deloitte provides a practical view of AI agents and autonomous systems, including how enterprises should think about orchestration, governance, and operational use cases.
7. Stripe offers a concise explanation of usage-based, outcome-based, and hybrid pricing models, useful for understanding where AI-era software pricing is heading.
8. Bloomberg documents how credit markets repriced software debt as investors absorbed the risk that AI could compress the value of parts of the traditional SaaS stack.

What’s your take? We are fostering a community of executives who want to discuss these issues in depth. This newsletter is but a part of it. We welcome your feedback and look forward to engaging in these conversations.

If you are interested in exploring the full report, discussing the Board’s offering further, or have any additional questions, please contact me at [email protected], and I will be happy to connect with you.

(*) A normal distillation process produces byproducts: primary, simple ones called foreshots, and secondary, more complex and nuanced ones called aftershots. This newsletter highlights remnants from the distillation process, the “cutting room floor” elements, and shares insights to complement the monthly report.