Digital labor is a business model in which a software company sells AI agents that carry out whole tasks, such as answering a customer or following up a lead, and charges for the work they do instead of for each person who logs in. The budget it competes for is the payroll, not the software line.
BornAI makes this pattern possible: software that can take a task from start to finish can be sold as work done.
How it makes money
Business software has been sold by the seat for a generation: one license for each person who logs in. That model carries a quiet assumption, that people do the work. Digital labor drops it. The vendor sells agents that answer the customer, update the record or follow up the lead, and charges for what they get done.
In the language of business model choices, the change is in who does the work, and it drags the unit of sale and the price along with it. A seat becomes a task. A license fee becomes a meter.
The seller's side
Salesforce has put the phrase in its annual report. With Agentforce, it says, customers can "build and deploy always-on digital labor for employees and customers." In customer service, digital labor is pitched to "handle low-touch interactions" so that people can take the harder cases. And the company says it offers Agentforce "through a consumption-based business model" and may sell more products that way.
The same filings show what the shift costs a seat seller. Among the reasons customers may leave or spend less, Salesforce lists "decreases in the number of users at our customers" and "the increased prevalence of consumption-based pricing models." Its latest quarterly report adds that attrition is harder to predict because of "our shift toward consumption-based pricing models." A company that sells seats and agents is selling, in the agents, something that can shrink the seat count.
The buyer's side
On the other side of the invoice sits the payroll. Of the restructuring filings US companies made with the SEC from January to September, the share that mentioned AI rose from 7% in 2023 to 29% in 2026. By our reading of the 45 such filings in 2026, 16 tied the cut to AI or automation doing the work. Angi, for one, cut about 350 jobs "in light of AI-driven efficiency improvements."
How it fails
Salesforce names the risk in a single line: "If customer usage of consumption-based offerings is below expected levels, our revenue could decline." Digital labor is paid when it is used. A seat was paid for whether anyone logged in or not.
Our read
Digital labor moves software into a far larger budget, and makes it answer to a far harder test. A seat only had to be useful enough to renew. An agent has to do a job well enough, often enough, that a company would rather pay for the work than hire for it.
For a software company that sells seats, the uncomfortable sum is that every agent that works may cancel a seat. The vendors that come out ahead will price the agent's work above the seats it replaces, and prove the work was done. For a buyer, the questions are the ones you would ask of any hire: what exactly is the job, how will you know it was done, and what does it cost when it is done badly.
Questions
- What is digital labor?
- AI agents sold to carry out whole tasks, such as answering a customer or following up a lead, priced for the work they do rather than per user. Salesforce uses the term for its Agentforce agents.
- How is digital labor priced?
- Usually by use, per task, conversation or credit consumed, rather than per person. Salesforce says it sells Agentforce through a consumption-based business model.
- Are companies cutting jobs because of AI?
- Some say so in their filings. Of the 45 restructuring filings from January to September 2026 that mentioned AI, 16 tied the cut to AI or automation doing the work, by our reading.
Sources
- Salesforce, Inc. (SEC EDGAR), Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026 (2026-03-02)
- Salesforce, Inc. (SEC EDGAR), Form 10-Q for the quarter ended July 31, 2026 (2026-08-27)
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR full-text search and filings: Form 8-K, Item 2.05, January 2023 to September 2026 (Stratrix count) (2026-10-31)
- Stratrix, Reading of each AI-mentioning restructuring 8-K, January to September 2026 (2026-10-31)
- Angi Inc. (SEC EDGAR), Form 8-K, Item 2.05 (2026-01-07)
- Snap Inc (SEC EDGAR), Form 8-K, EX-99.1 (2026-04-15)
Every figure and quotation on this page traces to these filings. “Our read” is Stratrix’s judgment, drawn from them. Analysis and data, not advice.
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