I started in the trenches.
Building WordPress sites, Facebook ads, and Mailchimp campaigns for mom-and-pop shops. We were the human layer between overwhelmed business owners and the tools they needed to grow. We didn’t sell software. We sold outcomes.
“We will get you 20 leads a week.”
“We will double your bookings.”
Not: “Here’s a login. Good luck.”
And that worked for a while. But then the ground shifted.
The Cannibalization of the Old Model
The traditional agency model is getting eaten alive—by DIY tools, AI platforms, and enterprise automation. I used to believe the threat came from the bottom: Wix, Canva, Shopify. But now it’s clear the disruption is coming from the top, too.
I was listening to Scott Galloway’s Prophecy Markets podcast, and he dropped a stat that made my ears perk up: Meta’s stock jumped 4% after they announced their fully automated, end-to-end marketing solution. AI as creative director. AI as media buyer. AI as optimizer.
No agency. No strategist. Just data and automation.
It hit me hard:
Meta isn’t just innovating—they’re eliminating the middle layer.
And that middle layer? That was us.
Enter: Agents as a Service
But this isn’t a death sentence. It’s a wake-up call.
The future isn’t Software as a Service.
It’s Agents as a Service.
Let me explain.
With SaaS, you’re still doing the work. You’re logging in, setting things up, pushing buttons, analyzing charts. With Agents as a Service, you describe the outcome—and the agents handle the rest.
“Get me 1,000 subscribers.”
“Run a campaign that converts at 5%.”
“Launch five landing pages and A/B test them for me.”
The backend? Doesn’t matter. Maybe it takes 500 agents testing 1,000 variations. Maybe it deploys and destroys infrastructure dynamically. It’s invisible.
And that’s the point. You don’t pay for effort. You pay for outcomes.
Why This Model Wins
- For Clients: No learning curve. No bloated dashboards. Just results.
- For Startups: Productize a service. Scale it. Charge for transformation, not time.
- For Investors: High-margin. Repeatable. Clear ROI.
This is what the long-tail economy needs. Not more tools. Not more subscriptions. But outcome-first automation powered by agents.
Who’s Already Building This?
Startups like Harvey (legal AI), Reka AI (multimodal enterprise agents), and Teneo.ai are leading the way. Platforms like Zapier, Dust.tt, and Beam AI are already embedding autonomous agents into workflows. Even old-school giants like WPP are scrambling to retrofit agent intelligence into their offerings.
This isn’t a theory. It’s a transition that’s already happening.
Challenges? Sure.
We still need better frameworks for agent collaboration, state management, and safety. LangChain, OpenAI’s Swarm, and Microsoft’s AutoGen are pushing the frontier. But the direction is clear: tools become agents. Agents deliver results.
Outcome Is the New Interface
We used to design UX around usability.
Now we design around outcomes.
The question isn’t: “How easy is this to use?”
The question is: “How fast can I win with this?”
And Agents as a Service answers that with confidence.
You want traction, leads, conversions, sales, attention?
You’ll get it. You don’t need the how. You need the what.
Final Thought
If you’re building something new, stop pitching features.
Start promising (and delivering) results.
Because SaaS is dead.
And Agents as a Service is just getting started.