UI-dependent, seat-based, workflow-centric applications sit at the most vulnerable position in the new agentic value chain. If your differentiation is navigation, dashboards, and workflow templates, you’re in the most exposed position.
Frontier’s architecture makes the threat explicit: AI coworkers are “accessible and useful through any interface, not trapped behind a single UI or application.” The agent operates through whatever channel is most efficient. The SaaS application’s UI becomes one optional delivery channel among many, not the product itself.
The Three-Way Fork
Become a pure data API: Lose UI value, keep data value, accept lower margin but retain structural relevance
Go agent-native: Deeply embed agent capabilities to gain orchestration value
Become the orchestration layer: ServiceNow’s McDermott claims his products serve as “the semantic layer that makes AI ubiquitous.” Salesforce’s Benioff argues Agentforce’s data access makes it the natural orchestration point. Both are bids to escape the hollow middle
There is also a fourth path: decline. Companies that neither own differentiated data nor build toward orchestration gradually lose relevance as agents route around their interfaces.
The Quiet Killer
The quiet killer isn’t agents replacing software next quarter. It’s that AI reduces the headcount that uses the software. If 10 agents do the work of 100 people, you need 10 seats, not 100, even if the software persists. Per-seat economics determine whether the application survives.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
