a16z: Salesforce is being downgraded to an API, and the AI scheduling layer will take the biggest profit in enterprise services over the next decade

CryptoWorld News reports that multiple partners at a16z have jointly published an article predicting that the dominant model of record-keeping systems, held by Salesforce and HubSpot for the past twenty years, is breaking down. The value focus of enterprise software is shifting toward intelligent systems, and traditional platforms like CRM will gradually lose their entry point status, downgrading to underlying API interfaces used by AI agents. The article points out that in the past, the moat of enterprise software lay in the high switching costs created by data accumulation. However, in the AI era, agents do not need traditional graphical interfaces; they can simultaneously extract structured data from calendars, emails, Slack, and billing systems to make decisions. Therefore, the moat of software systems has shifted from data accumulation to scheduling capabilities. This technological shift has led to two counterintuitive results: first, AI has not reduced the human budget for sales teams; instead, companies are increasing their investment in personnel. Second, the actual usage of CRM has surged because AI automatically listens to calls in the background and writes structured notes back into the system, making the previously dormant database extraordinarily rich. Although the article is highly optimistic about the emerging intelligent scheduling layer, combined with internal discussions at a16z during the same period, this power transfer is far more complex than it appears on the surface.