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What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

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Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#21

Post by bradchris »

bashtoni wrote: post #17

This is a good read that is a great starting point for thinking about this. It essentially takes the extreme position - SaaS no longer needs a UI, because the LLM is the UI. In reality, as always, I suspect the truth will be somewhere in between. SaaS products that succeed will be those that have a good UI _and_ and good API that LLMs can use. An LLM is not always the best interface, particularly for data access. For…

Also— for B2B SaaS, a big component of what is being sold is not the product, but support. No matter how modern or antiquated the tech is, many B2B companies don’t actually care about the experience per-se; they care about compliance, security, data integrity, and ongoing support. That’s essentially Oracle’s entire playbook!

How do LLM SaaS replacements solve that?

Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#22

Post by BSOhealth »

UX is already working on this. AI as a first-class persona that can be deliberately designed for and accommodated. APIs and protocols are way too strict. Think HTML and black Times New Roman on white backgrounds from the old days. Clear information (text) and activation options (hyperlink) are all it needs.

Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#23

Post by caspper69 »

llm_trw wrote: post #19
caspper69 wrote: post #15

Continuing on with my "old man yells at cloud" meme of late, here's my hot take: So let me get this straight- we are going to train AI models to perform screen recognition of some kind (so it can ascertain layout and detect the "important" ui elements), and additionally ask that AI to OCR all text on the screen so it has some hope of being able to follow some natural language instructions (OCR being a task which, as…

>So let me get this straight- we are going to train AI models to perform screen recognition of some kind (so it can ascertain layout and detect the "important" ui elements), and additionally ask that AI to OCR all text on the screen so it has some hope of being able to follow some natural language instructions (OCR being a task which, as a HN thread a day or two ago pointed out, AI is exceedingly bad at), and then we…

Ok, I will need to work on my reading comprehension skills.

That being said, I thought the purpose of OCR was to take text from a non-digital source and make it digital.

Why should we have to OCR something that exists already in a perfectly interchangeable digital format already?

Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#24

Post by charliebwrites »

nonchalantsui wrote: post #2

Great doc. I wonder when we’ll be getting an OS that dedicates itself to Agents.

I’ll bet you a bag of peanuts that some SaaS company names their next AI Product “AgentOS”

2 bags of peanuts if the actual product isn’t an OS and barely passes as AI

Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#25

Post by caspper69 »

svilen_dobrev wrote: post #18
caspper69 wrote: post #15

Continuing on with my "old man yells at cloud" meme of late, here's my hot take: So let me get this straight- we are going to train AI models to perform screen recognition of some kind (so it can ascertain layout and detect the "important" ui elements), and additionally ask that AI to OCR all text on the screen so it has some hope of being able to follow some natural language instructions (OCR being a task which, as…

check https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42974429 from few days ago.. the OP was re-advertising OAUth, but another idea might be, that new kind of interfaces are needed - application agentic interfaces - standing in middle between APP(Programming) (too detailed) and AHI(Human) screen/forms (too human targeted). IMO.

I propose the Open Agent Interface.

We can call it OpenAI.

I'll see myself out.

Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#26

Post by sansseriff »

bashtoni wrote: post #17

This is a good read that is a great starting point for thinking about this. It essentially takes the extreme position - SaaS no longer needs a UI, because the LLM is the UI. In reality, as always, I suspect the truth will be somewhere in between. SaaS products that succeed will be those that have a good UI _and_ and good API that LLMs can use. An LLM is not always the best interface, particularly for data access. For…

Yep, it's funny how one of the key factors that limits LLM usage is just the typing speed of users.

I agree that the amount of bespoke UI that needs to exist probably won't stagnate. Humans need about the same amount of visual information to verify a task was done correctly as they need to do the task.

LLM generated UI is an interesting field. Sure, you can get ChatGPT to generate schema to lay out some buttons. But it seems harder to identify the context and relevant information that must be displayed for the human to be a valuable/necessary asset in the process.

Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#27

Post by s__s »

bashtoni wrote: post #17

This is a good read that is a great starting point for thinking about this. It essentially takes the extreme position - SaaS no longer needs a UI, because the LLM is the UI. In reality, as always, I suspect the truth will be somewhere in between. SaaS products that succeed will be those that have a good UI _and_ and good API that LLMs can use. An LLM is not always the best interface, particularly for data access. For…

The position is more extreme than that. It’s your SaaS without its UI is nothing more than a database.

> The underlying SaaS platform is reduced to a “database” or “utility” that an agent can switch out if needed.

I agree that UI isn’t going away completely. Language is a slow and imprecise tool. A well developed UI can be much more efficient. I think it will be much more like the Star Trek universe, where we use a blend of the two.

In any case, if the AI agent can generate UI on the fly, it seems their point still stands?

Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#28

Post by sansseriff »

Magmalgebra wrote: post #6

I think this post underestimates how the degree to which “what data is correct” is deeply contextual. My team created an identical hypothesis to this doc ~2 years ago and generated a proof of concept. It was pretty magic, we had fortune 500 execs asking for reports on internal metrics and they’d generate in a couple of minutes. First week we got rave reviews - followed by an immediate round of negative feedback as we…

It will be interesting to see in what fields it's worth the effort to curate you're data to a high enough standard that you get all the benefits of the ai agent.

I'm currently working as a scientist. I wonder if researchers will be willing to annotate their papers, data, reasoning, and arguments well enough that ai agents can make good use if it all.

If you write your papers in an AI friendly way, maybe that means more citations? Does this mean switching to new publishing formats? Pdfs are certainly limiting

Re: What happens to SaaS in a world with computer-using agents?

#29

Post by TaurenHunter »

Magmalgebra wrote: post #6

I think this post underestimates how the degree to which “what data is correct” is deeply contextual. My team created an identical hypothesis to this doc ~2 years ago and generated a proof of concept. It was pretty magic, we had fortune 500 execs asking for reports on internal metrics and they’d generate in a couple of minutes. First week we got rave reviews - followed by an immediate round of negative feedback as we…

That must be the reason why Palantir and other AI companies are using the concept of "ontology".

We can't let a LLM loose on a database and expect it to figure out everything.

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