In the past two years, generative AI has quickly been put into many business operations. tasks such as information synthesis, data analysis, document drafting, planning or reporting can be performed with the support of AI models.
This change is expanding the role of AI from a personal support tool to a component that can participate in the business operation process.
But along with that, a big question is also gradually appearing. If software was previously built to help people work better, what would happen when businesses start to have a new labor force, AI?
Business software must change
Sharing at the Enterprise AI Summit 2026 event held on the afternoon of September 23rd in Ho Chi Minh City organized by Base.vn, experts emphasized that the emergence of AI Agent (artificial intelligence agent) is creating pressure to change the enterprise software architecture.
In the traditional SaaS (service software) model, businesses purchase or register to use software with features pre-designed by the provider. Users operate on the system to complete each step of the process.
With AI, part of the operation can be transferred from the user's direct operation to the requirement for the system to perform the task. This requires the software not only to understand the data but also to understand the context, goals, processes and powers of the user.
For businesses, the issue is no longer simply to put AI into some features, but to determine how AI will be organized and controlled throughout the operating system.
According to the orientation given at the event, businesses in the next stage may not only be places where people use software, but become a system in which people, data, software and AI agents coordinate with each other.
This also opens up a new direction for business software development: Instead of just helping businesses digitize what they are doing, the system can become an infrastructure for businesses to build new operating methods.
From digital transformation to "smart" organization
The new approach also changes the goals of enterprise software. If digital transformation previously focused on bringing processes from the paper environment to the digital platform, the next stage may focus on allowing data and AI to directly participate in the operation process.
This shift shows that AI is impacting business software at a deeper level. Instead of just asking AI for an answer, businesses can move towards assigning AI a task, monitoring the implementation process, and allowing humans to control important decisions.
In the next decade, the challenge for businesses is therefore not only "whether to use AI or not", but to determine how AI will be organized, decentralized and coordinated with humans in the entire operating system.
