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Enterprise software has long operated based on relatively stable power hierarchies. The company that owned the interface owned the majority of the customer relationship. Employees navigated using dashboards, tabs, forms, and menus. The software vendor sold more seats, expanded across divisions, and steadily increased recurring revenue.
agent A.I. That model is starting to become unstable. Enterprise users no longer need to interact directly with software to complete their daily tasks. AI agents can coordinate actions across multiple systems using only natural language commands.
That possibility has the software industry reeling. Earlier this year, SaaS stocks tumbled as investors wondered if AI agents could weaken sticky interfaces, compress seat growth and undermine the economics that have underpinned enterprise software for decades.
The question currently plaguing the industry is whether AI agents will completely hollow out enterprise software or relocate where value is created within the software. Few executives have pushed back against the first theory as aggressively as Bill McDermott, ServiceNow’s longtime CEO. He argues that investors fundamentally misunderstand how enterprise AI is actually deployed within large organizations.
“AI thinks,” McDermott said. fast company. “It has incredible computational power. But it doesn’t work.”
This feature is at the heart of ServiceNow’s broader AI strategy. While many investors fear that hyperscalers and foundational model companies will eventually absorb the bulk of enterprise software, McDermott argues that the rise of AI is actually increasing the importance of orchestration, workflow governance, and operational execution systems.
“When you run a company and you want a digital agent to collaborate with a human, or even do something that is often done by humans, the digital agent just needs to follow along with the business process to actually get things done,” he says.
So far, investor concerns about AI disruption haven’t significantly slowed ServiceNow’s growth. The company still expects subscription revenue to be more than $15.7 billion in 2026, but its Now Assist AI business reached $750 million in annual subscription value in the first quarter and is targeting $1.5 billion by year-end.
The company claims that the introduction of AI is not making customers less dependent on the platform, but rather making them more dependent. According to ServiceNow, 91% of net new annual contract value in 2025 came from deals involving five or more products, and Now Assist deals involving three or more products grew nearly 70% year-over-year.
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What does religion say about AI?
in Recent speeches at La Sapienza University in RomePope Leo XIV warned against investing in. artificial intelligence And high-tech weapons could send the world into what he calls a “spiral of destruction.”
Leo has identified AI as a critical issue for humanity and is expected to soon publish a papal encyclical (a kind of open letter on Catholic doctrine) addressing the issue. His concerns reflect a broader debate that is taking shape across the religious community. Artificial intelligence in its current form has only been on the market for a few years, but religious leaders and scholars with centuries-old traditions are already weighing in on the technology.
While perspectives understandably vary across faiths and, in some traditions, across denominations and congregations, much discussion has focused on the role that AI can and cannot play in religious education and research. Additionally, scholars are investigating its impact on human labor, society, and the environment.
AI and religious teachings and practices
Some administrative leaders are experimenting with using AI for drafting. sermon and other religious materials, some faith communities are building chatbots designed to answer doctrinal and ethical issues; The team, which included researchers from Kyoto University, even deployed a robot monk called “.Buddharoid“” will be held at a temple in Kyoto, where you can take postures related to prayer. The project comes at a time when Japanese Buddhism, like other religious traditions around the world, is facing a decline in the number of its followers. Other developers have created AI versions of spiritual figures, including emulations of them. JesusVirgin Mary, and even satan.
But other leaders are more cautious about how AI should be used in religious practice, often emphasizing the unique relationship between humans and God. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently said: said decision magazine A pastor who uses AI to write sermons (as opposed to using AI for research) is essentially committing plagiarism.
“Let’s just state what is theologically obvious: A pastor is a human being who is called to study the Word of God, hear the Word of God, preach the Word of God, and obey the Word of God,” Mohler said. “Machines are not required to do any of those things and cannot do any of them.”
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