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YPO Technology Network AI Brief

From Paying for Seats to Paying for Results

July 6 · 15 min · Season 1 · Episode 101 · 14.9 MB
0:00-15:30

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An extended, single-thesis episode. For a century the two biggest lines on your P&L — payroll and per-seat software — have been fixed costs sized to peak, sitting there hoping to earn their keep. Stephen Forte's belief: AI turns them into variable costs billed per outcome — per interaction, per order, per resolution.

  • The spine: a fixed cost is a bet on utilization; a variable cost is a bill for results.
  • Two live proofs: Medicare's new ACCESS model pays organizations only when AI-supported chronic care hits measurable health outcomes; Salesforce's Agentforce charges $2 only when its agent resolves a ticket.
  • The capstone: adopting AI properly isn't bolting a tool onto the org chart — it's rewiring the company's operating system (why MIT found 95% of GenAI pilots deliver no P&L impact: they installed new software on the old OS).

Plus four moves to make this quarter — and why Stephen has bet his own company on this shift with pay-for-performance managed agents.

Sources: CMS.gov; Salesforce; MIT NANDA; company reports.