Pricing of AI

 This topic has been a real head scratcher – how do you charge for AI?

• By consumption (eg by tokens used or by transaction) – and the value of a token isn’t too transparent either
• By conversation

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made a pronouncement in December: per-seat with some fair use limitations (see The Register). 

AI is a significant plank in Salesforce’s strategy. It has made lots of investment in the tech and running AI has costs too of course, so it needs to evidence some return. 

Given that AI is touted to reduce headcount, the fact that Benioff is charging by per-seat might be surprising. However Forrester reports 

55 percent of employers regret laying off workers because of AI. More people in charge of AI investment expect it to increase headcount (57 percent) than to decrease it (15 percent) over the next year.

So Salesforce is signalling that AI is an enabler for employees rather than a separate profit centre. This decision is a balance between: 

• User-based pricing. AI is likely to loved (and heavily-used) by a minority
• Consumption-based pricing. This is kinda an open-book charging mechanism and the boys in Finance have no control on how big a bill employees might be running up.

In the end Salesforce believe understandable pricing outweighs matching cost to benefit, meaning that they’ll make some profit out of some customers and a loss on others. Forrester agrees – see Outcome-Based Pricing Is Coming — Be Ready For It