KEARNEY100The emerging agentic Alsoftware infrastructure marke.FromSaaS to agenticAlDigital and Analytics/ArticleMarch102026Between the late 1990s and the mid-2010s the rise of software-as-a-service (SaaS)fundamentallydismantled the on-premisesapplication market. Early SaaS pioneers such as Salesforce (founded in 1999)demonstrated that multi-tenant, subscription-based delivery could outperform licensed, install-and- maintain software on cost speed and scalability. By the late 2000s, SaaS adoption accelerated rapidly ascloud infrastructure matured, culminating in the 2010-2015 period when SaaS became the dominanmodel for new enterorise software pourchases. These SaaS companies bult their new business on the badlof cloud softwareinfrastructure.These foundational capabilities. spannina cloud infrastructure. cloudplatform services, cloud operations, and cloud financial and commercial management, were crucialprerequisitesforSaaSadoption at scale and had to mature before the SaaS marketcould ful takeoff Much ike the indlustrv s transition from on -premises softweare to SaS, agentic Al wl lso usher in a newsoftware delivery model, leading to very dlifferent underlying software infrastructure (see figure 1). Asoftware infrastructure model is beginning to take shape for agentic Al, providing the foundationaservices required to enable the transition from application-centric SaS platformsto agent-centric agentias-a service (AaaS) systems.In the followina sectiodescribe how this adentic Al software.infrastructure landscape is shaping up and then offer some investment hypotheses to capitalize on thisshift
Figure1Fromsoftwareasaservice.toagenticasaserviceThereareseveralkey(Saas)(AaaS)differencesbetweenSaaSandAaaSPrimaryunitApplicationAgentPresentationStaticUXControllogicHard-codedworkflowsDynamicreasoning,planning,and learningUserroleControllerSupervisorIntelligenceContainedinfeaturesCross-systemFalluremodeBrokenworkflowMisaligneddecisionsCommercialmodelSeatsActions/outcomesEnterpriseGTMAccount-drivensalesConsulting-orientedsales,ecosystemreachCompetitionbasisApplicationfeatures:EcosvstemreachThe evolving agentic Al software infrastructure.landscapeThe agentic Al software infrastructure market remains nascent and rapilly evolving. While definitive,mature platforms akin to today's cloud databases or container orchestration layers do not yet exist, clear patrns of capabie are crysaizing. Thesearly paterns proide a vluable lens into howinvestosvendors, builders, and enterprise adopters should think about future infrastructure investmentstraditional Al platforms. First, solutions must be capable of running in secure, standalone environmentsId ata covernance recuirements. Second they must support dynamicdiscovery and integration with external services and data sources, enabling agents to act on up-to-datebusiness contextar and collaborate with one anothersharing work and knowledge rather than operating as isolated slos. Persistent memory, both short-termandlong-term is esentil a is ...
