Companies are hiring AI agents like employees, complete with job descriptions and performance reviews

CIO's Maria Korolov reports on how enterprises are rethinking their relationship with AI agents. OneDigital built an entire "AI staffing team" that writes job descriptions for agents, promotes them from intern to apprentice to full-time coworker, and assigns human supervisors to write improvement plans. The company's benefits expert agent, Ben, works alongside consultants as a thought partner on cost strategies and carrier negotiations.

The numbers show this isn't an edge case. Gartner predicts 40% of enterprise applications will include agentic AI by 2026, up from under 5% today. By 2035, agents could drive $450 billion in software revenue. IDC says pure seat-based pricing will be obsolete by 2028, forcing 70% of vendors to develop new business models.

Agents aren't just a feature upgrade. They're forcing companies to think about vendor relationships differently—not as software licenses but as staffing decisions. That changes everything from procurement to integration to the economics of enterprise software. OneDigital built an AI staffing team that writes job descriptions for agents and promotes them from intern to full-time coworker.

The economics are shifting: agents could drive $450B in software revenue by 2035.

Agents-as-a-service are poised to rewire the software industry and corporate structures

Enterprise software vendors can see the agentic train coming and are quickly investing to stay ahead of it. For CIOs, the evolution of AaaS will change not just how the tools are used, but how they’re priced, integrated, and secured.

CIOMaria Korolov