The software industry is currently moving toward 'agentic' artificial intelligence. This change is marked by large companies buying smaller firms and the rise of small, AI-focused startups.

軟體產業目前正朝向「代理型」人工智慧發展。這一轉變的標誌是大公司收購小公司，以及專注於 AI 的小型初創企業崛起。

Salesforce has started a series of strategic acquisitions to improve its AI tools, most notably the $3.6 billion purchase of Fin, an AI customer service platform. Along with smaller deals for M3ter and Contentful, these moves aim to strengthen the Agentforce suite. However, some market experts are skeptical. For example, analyst Gil Luria emphasized that AI might disrupt the traditional way companies make money from software licenses, which may explain why Salesforce's stock fell by about 40% last year. On the other hand, Cantor Fitzgerald asserted that established software providers could still dominate the market by buying innovative AI startups that lack the size to grow on their own.

Salesforce 已開始一系列策略性收購以提升其 AI 工具，最著名的是以 36 億美元購入 AI 客服平台 Fin。加上對 M3ter 和 Contentful 的小型交易，這些舉措旨在強化 Agentforce 套件。然而，部分市場專家對此持懷疑態度。例如，分析師 Gil Luria 強調，AI 可能會顛覆公司從軟體授權獲利的傳統方式，這或許解釋了為何 Salesforce 的股價去年下跌了約 40%。另一方面，Cantor Fitzgerald 則斷言，成熟的軟體供應商只要收購那些規模不足以獨立成長的創新 AI 初創公司，仍能主導市場。

At the same time, a new trend of 'tiny teams' has appeared. One example is an AI note-taking app started by students that earned $13 million in total revenue with only ten full-time employees. They used AI coding tools to stay highly productive, although the founders warned that relying too much on automation could weaken basic coding skills. This shows a broader shift where AI allows very small teams to produce work that previously required many more people.

與此同時，出現了一種「微型團隊」的新趨勢。其中一個例子是由學生創立的 AI 筆記應用程式，僅用十名全職員工就創造了 1,300 萬美元的總營收。他們利用 AI 程式碼工具來保持高生產力，儘管創辦人警告，過度依賴自動化可能會削弱基礎的程式碼撰寫能力。這顯示出一個更廣泛的轉移，即 AI 允許極小規模的團隊產出過去需要更多人力才能完成的工作。

Furthermore, the business of evaluating AI is growing quickly. Arena, a company from UC Berkeley, reached $100 million in annual revenue just eight months after launching. By selling data on how AI models perform, Arena is now competing with other firms like Scale AI. This growth shows that there is a high demand for services that help AI providers refine and optimize their models for complex tasks.

此外，AI 評估業務正快速成長。來自加州大學柏克萊分校的 Arena 公司在推出僅八個月後，年營收便達到 1 億美元。透過銷售 AI 模型表現的數據，Arena 目前正與 Scale AI 等公司競爭。這種增長顯示出市場對於協助 AI 供應商精鍊並優化模型以處理複雜任務的服務有高度需求。

The software sector is currently split between older companies trying to change through acquisitions and flexible, AI-native startups that are growing rapidly.

軟體產業目前分為兩派：一方是試圖透過收購進行轉型的老牌公司，另一方則是快速成長且靈活的 AI 原生初創公司。