Salesforce CEO Reverses on AI Pricing — Pivots Back to Per-User Model After Data Shows Enterprise Buyers Prefer Predictable Costs

TechRadar·high signal

After experimenting with usage- and conversation-based pricing for agentic AI, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff announced per-user pricing as 'the new AI norm,' citing Kustomer discovery that buyers preferred seat-based models mapping to existing budget structures. This is a significant counter-signal to conventional wisdom that AI agents will kill seat-based pricing — suggesting incumbents may anchor the pricing transition to familiar structures rather than forcing outcome-based models on risk-averse enterprise procurement teams.