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This is obviously the future, where this will all end up. But just like when I saw the demos for Google's "AI build the interface dynamically", I wonder how muc

This is obviously the future, where this will all end up. But just like when I saw the demos for Google's "AI build the interface dynamically", I wonder how much of the demo actually translates to real usage. One thing that this highlights for me even more than before is that having accounts for my bots is what I really want. I want SaaS providers to catch up to bot use. They need their own accounts on a lot of these services and per-seat pricing works against this.

ralph84 2mo ago
How does per-seat pricing work against bots? If anything it's a great deal because SaaS providers set per-seat pricing with the expectation that on average most seats are idle. Bots working 24x7 can get a lot more value out of a seat than humans working 9-5.
- stillpointlab 2mo ago
  I just mean for me as a solo dev I guess. For example, github gives 2 users as part of a basic org and charges extra per seat, so if I want seats for individual agents so I can track them separately then I have to pay more. Same with Google Workspace, where I have to pay for additional users if I want to have multiple accounts. As an example, I wanted to set up users in AWS identity center so I can give view only access to bots for my infrastructure, but that requires different email addresses. I set up an alias on my existing user so I didn't have to do that, but ideally I could have accounts for agent1 and agent2. I can usually find workarounds like this but I feel I shouldn't have to. I don't want the agents to share my permissions in general since I'm often the admin. I want to give them limited scopes whenever possible. edit: for reference, a Google Workspace user is ~220CAD/year and a github user is ~50USD/year. That is quite expensive if I want to add a couple of agents (well over 500CAD/year).
- bulder 2mo ago
  Presumably it'll either mean selling "agent seats", or billing seats for every started hour of use. With a monthly minimum, of course.
Manfrednotfunny 2mo ago
We are still early on and already see things like this being created etc. The big difference probably will be the compute use, the big players will introduce A2A stuff sooner than later, than you don't need to login into any services per webui. I think we will also see more streamlined things, like verified actions / signed actions, etc.
- stillpointlab 2mo ago
  I think that is true in fast moving and AI adjacent business, but less true in established players. Like everything. The main issue are businesses where the per-seat model is their entire business model. There is a balance between taking advantage of the opportunity of the explosion of bots by offering a lower price option to attract new users and cannibalizing your existing users who might swap to the lower price option seeing it as good enough. On my side it is less the streamlining (AI can mostly do anything on my computer already, it has little trouble with CLI or computer use) and more to do with cost. If cost wasn't an issue, I'd just pay the full price for a full seat.
jbs789 2mo ago
A bot driving a browser feels like a workaround for a bot interacting with a server on bot terms, and the web just hasn’t got there yet, but will…

ralph84 2mo ago

How does per-seat pricing work against bots? If anything it's a great deal because SaaS providers set per-seat pricing with the expectation that on average most seats are idle. Bots working 24x7 can get a lot more value out of a seat than humans working 9-5.

stillpointlab 2mo ago
I just mean for me as a solo dev I guess. For example, github gives 2 users as part of a basic org and charges extra per seat, so if I want seats for individual agents so I can track them separately then I have to pay more. Same with Google Workspace, where I have to pay for additional users if I want to have multiple accounts. As an example, I wanted to set up users in AWS identity center so I can give view only access to bots for my infrastructure, but that requires different email addresses. I set up an alias on my existing user so I didn't have to do that, but ideally I could have accounts for agent1 and agent2. I can usually find workarounds like this but I feel I shouldn't have to. I don't want the agents to share my permissions in general since I'm often the admin. I want to give them limited scopes whenever possible. edit: for reference, a Google Workspace user is ~220CAD/year and a github user is ~50USD/year. That is quite expensive if I want to add a couple of agents (well over 500CAD/year).
bulder 2mo ago
Presumably it'll either mean selling "agent seats", or billing seats for every started hour of use. With a monthly minimum, of course.

Manfrednotfunny 2mo ago

We are still early on and already see things like this being created etc. The big difference probably will be the compute use, the big players will introduce A2A stuff sooner than later, than you don't need to login into any services per webui. I think we will also see more streamlined things, like verified actions / signed actions, etc.

stillpointlab 2mo ago
I think that is true in fast moving and AI adjacent business, but less true in established players. Like everything. The main issue are businesses where the per-seat model is their entire business model. There is a balance between taking advantage of the opportunity of the explosion of bots by offering a lower price option to attract new users and cannibalizing your existing users who might swap to the lower price option seeing it as good enough. On my side it is less the streamlining (AI can mostly do anything on my computer already, it has little trouble with CLI or computer use) and more to do with cost. If cost wasn't an issue, I'd just pay the full price for a full seat.

jbs789 2mo ago

A bot driving a browser feels like a workaround for a bot interacting with a server on bot terms, and the web just hasn’t got there yet, but will…