Summary
It was a great discussion on licensing for AI agents. Does an AI agent need a M365 licence to work with Office files?
The traditional per-user model isn't well-suited for workloads with varying intensities. One AI agent could run constantly, another just occasionally. Per-user licensing doesn't fit well here, though it's more familiar than consumption-based models.
A pay-as-you-go consumption-based approach looks more suitable, but it's a nightmare for business planning – you can't forecast your expenses until you've tried it.
We already see a mixed licensing approach in Power Apps and Power Automate: you can choose and switch between per-user and consumption-based licensing models. Is it applicable to AI agents? I think so. And it's making licensing even more complicated, which is great according to Mr B's precepts.
But there's also a technical aspect.
Do AI agents need Microsoft Office at all?
MS Office is just an interface for opening and modifying Office files, designed for humans.
Can an AI agent open an Office file? For sure.
Can it modify it directly, as the file is just code? Yes.
So why does the AI agent need a M365 licence?
Here's another point.
When a human user uses an Office application, Big Brother isn't aware of it (let's assume this for now), so Microsoft can't charge for application usage. That's why it's been selling licences and subscriptions. That user can open one Word file per day, or play with data in Excel all day long – same price, different consumption.
Can Microsoft "see" what the agent is doing? Yes.
Can it charge for the agent's operations with Office files? Yes.
Technically, there's no longer a need for a per-user licence. It's per-transaction.
Per-user licences hide true usage; per-transaction models expose every agent operation.
Welcome to the brave new world.
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