Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping commercial decision-making, but in B2B industrial sectors — manufacturing, distribution, and engineered products — the path to value looks very different than in digital-native industries. Industrial businesses operate in environments defined by high SKU complexity, customer-specific pricing, contract nuance, and relationship-driven sales. In this context, AI is often not a plug-and-play solution. It delivers impact when introduced

For decades, “per seat” pricing has been the default for SaaS and many technology products: count the users, multiply by a license fee, and you have a simple, predictable revenue model. That logic made sense when software value mapped closely to the number of humans logging in. AI is breaking that link. As AI agents automate work that humans used to do, seat-based pricing risks shrinking revenue just as your product’s value and cost-to-serve go up. Token-based pricing offers