Enterprise software companies are responding to claims in some quarters that AI poses a threat with more aggressive AI strategies.

The industry said on Tuesday that leading global enterprise software companies have recently been rolling out new AI agent products in succession, accelerating a shift toward AI-led businesses. They are also increasingly in an aggressive mode on mergers and acquisitions to strengthen AI capabilities.

Cloud-based business applications company ServiceNow unveiled Autonomous Workforce and EmployeeWorks, AI agents that perform actual work rather than simply assisting with routine tasks.

ServiceNow is currently focusing Autonomous Workforce roles on a Level 1 service desk AI specialist, an employee service agent and a security operations analyst. The Level 1 service desk AI specialist will be launched first in the second quarter of 2026.

The company said the service desk AI specialist resolves routine IT issues fully independently, from VPN outages and password resets to software installation. It can access systems like a human employee and carry out detection, analysis, execution and documentation, and ultimately update the knowledge base. The entire process takes place without human intervention.

If the AI specialist cannot resolve an issue, it can still hand the case over to Level 2 and Level 3 employees, who are human. If they resolve the issue and update the knowledge base, the AI specialist will later be able to resolve that specific issue independently.

EmployeeWorks is based on technology from Moveworks, which ServiceNow acquired in December 2025. It combines conversational AI and enterprise search functions with the ServiceNow portal and autonomous workflows. The company said EmployeeWorks processes enterprise users' natural-language requests through end-to-end execution with governance applied.

With companies adopting AI tools one after another, enterprise users are increasingly required to move between different systems for each task. EmployeeWorks identifies the intent of a question and executes required tasks across multiple systems on its own. It can be used the same way through Teams or Slack, allowing enterprise users to work in familiar environments.

ServiceNow has also been active in mergers and acquisitions to strengthen AI agent capabilities. It recently acquired Israeli startup Traceloop, which supports improvements to AI agent performance. Previously, improving AI agent performance required relying on repeated experiments with manual prompt adjustments, but Traceloop shifts that to an automated evaluation system. The company said it helps developers find problems early, track model behavior in real operating environments, and deploy fixes with higher confidence.

Notion, an AI-based collaboration tool, also launched Custom Agents that run automated workflows based on schedules and triggers.

Notion officially launches Custom Agents, automating repetitive tasks.

Once a workflow is defined, Custom Agents automatically handle repetitive tasks even when the user is not online. They run within Notion and integrate with external tools such as Slack, email and calendars. They generate accurate outputs by using the context of accumulated documents and databases.

Notion CEO Ivan Zhao (이반 자오) said on the Access podcast hosted by Alex Heath (알렉스 헤스) that Custom Agents are the biggest change since the company was founded. Notion is also preparing a standalone AI chat app. The chat app is a chat-only interface with full context of the Notion platform, and it will also be able to manage email and calendars.

[Tech Insight] There is no future for software that AI agents cannot use.

Cloud-based project management software company Airtable also recently unveiled an AI agent called Superagent. The company said Superagent is a "multi-agent orchestration system" focused on having multiple AIs collaborate simultaneously on complex tasks rather than relying on a single AI. For example, if a user asks about expanding into the European market, Superagent first establishes a research plan, then analyzes financial, competitive and management factors to generate a comprehensive report. It provides advanced AI collaboration, including interactive market analysis and data visualization rather than simple text output.

It operates independently of Airtable and is available across various pricing plans ranging from $20 to $200 per month. Airtable hired former OpenAI employee David Azoz (데이비드 아조스) as CTO and acquired AI agent startup DeepSky, under a goal of expanding beyond its existing business into AI agents.

B2B software-as-a-service companies have allowed customers to move data between different applications through application programming interfaces, or APIs. The same was true among competitors.

This allowed customers of Salesforce and HubSpot, which compete in the CRM market, to sync records related to sales leads. Such data exchanges helped software companies retain customers by preventing customers from becoming locked in to a specific software vendor.

But as AI agents spread, signs are emerging that software companies could change such policies.

The Information recently reported that as HubSpot AI agents spread, signs are emerging that software companies could change long-standing data-sharing policies.

HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan (야미니 랑간) said on a conference call after a recent earnings release, when asked how the company would respond to external AI agents using HubSpot data, "We will monitor it, measure it and monetize it. HubSpot is designed to be open, but it is not a free data pipeline where anyone can take information."

The Information said his remarks differed from the generous data access policy maintained for nearly 20 years since the company's founding. It said the comments signaled that the use of HubSpot data by external agents could be entering an era in which it is no longer free.

If HubSpot actually changes its stance, it could be beneficial for revenue but may face a significant backlash. The Information said Salesforce drew criticism after it blocked external companies such as Glean from storing Slack customer data in Salesforce products in May last year, and the business impact of that decision is still unclear.