According to Okta's CEO, the most valuable application for AI agents in the enterprise will be orchestrating complex processes that span multiple software silos (e.g., Salesforce, SAP, Content Management). This is a task that has historically been difficult to automate with packaged software and required human intervention, representing a massive new opportunity.

To avoid becoming a valueless database that AI agents simply crawl, SaaS platforms must fundamentally change. The pivot is from being a UI for human data entry to becoming an orchestration layer where humans and agents collaborate, with agents becoming the primary focus of the user experience.

Building a single AI tool is not enough. The real value lies in becoming the 'conductor,' creating a system that orchestrates multiple specialized AI agents to complete complex workflows. Whoever owns this coordination layer owns the entire value flow.

Todd McKinnon conceptualizes AI agents not as simple tools but as a fundamentally new identity category. This identity possesses attributes of both a human user (roles, permissions) and a system (automation, being headless). This reframing is central to building the next generation of enterprise security and access management.

Todd McKinnon believes that while major platforms like Microsoft will try to create walled gardens for their AI agents, customer demand for interoperability will ultimately win. If market forces fail, he predicts government antitrust intervention, drawing a parallel to the historic unbundling of IBM's hardware and software businesses.

Legacy systems like CRMs will lose their central role. A new, dynamic 'agent layer' will sit above them, interpreting user intent and executing tasks across multiple tools. This layer, which collapses the distance between intent and action, will become the primary place where work gets done.

Instead of focusing solely on defending its core business, Okta sees the primary AI opportunity in a new market for managing AI agent identities. CEO Todd McKinnon believes this "agent layer" could become the single largest category in cybersecurity, a market currently worth over $280 billion.

Traditional SaaS was built for siloed human departments (e.g., sales, marketing, support). AI enables a single agent to manage the entire customer journey, forcing these distinct software categories to converge into unified platforms.

SaaS products like Salesforce won't be easily ripped out. The real danger is that new AI agents will operate across all SaaS tools, becoming the primary user interface and capturing the next wave of value. This relegates existing SaaS platforms to a lower, less valuable infrastructure layer.