
Over the last 18 months, the term “Agent” has exploded. Every product that automates a workflow is now an agent for that workflow. As someone building with LLMs, I’m bullish on the potential of agents. I’m less bullish on agents being the right term to market and sell the product.

People say you should create and claim a new category in B2B SaaS. They’ll often refer to Gainsight, which created the customer success software category. To me, the term agent does not tick the category creation box. My concern is that it’s too close to the solution, and too far from the problem.

Buyers want to know what you can solve for them. If you prefix the function to the term agent, it tells me where you are going to help. It doesn’t speak to why I should buy it. Customer success, for example, speaks directly to the outcome you are targeting.

Part of the reason I’m writing this is because we do need to explain to buyers that this is a _new_ type of software. It can think on the fly, and complete workflows end-to-end (well not yet, but we’re going to get there). It’s closer to an employee than it is to current software: it can think subjectively, make mistakes and take feedback to improve over time.

This is the evolution of software for every workflow. Consider the B2B sales workflow. Automation has existed for years: to find leads, to enrich them and to reach out to them. Today, we’re able to automate more of the workflow because LLMs give you decision making on the fly.

Whatever term we use, it needs to speak directly to the value you are creating. For example, most AI sales agents help you book meetings 24/7 so that your sales team can focus on deals.

I’m totally in favour of a new category, I just don’t know if “agents” is it.


Krishna Nandakumar