Summary
Nate B Jones argues that enterprise AI deals keep stalling over the wrong question. Procurement teams debate whether to pay per seat or per token, but he says tokens only meter compute and seats come from traditional SaaS, while what companies are really buying is intelligence.
Using the example of Cedar, a healthcare payments company whose AI agent Cora answers patient calls about medical bills at any hour, he shows how the customer cares about the bill getting paid rather than the tokens used. Jones explains why this shifts the burden of earning a return onto the buyer, why CFOs struggle to allocate and value intelligence, and why individuals have an opening to become managers of AI rather than just users.
The second half looks at how AI suppliers are responding. He discusses forward-deployed engineering at OpenAI and Anthropic, including Anthropic’s joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and Goldman Sachs aimed at mid-size manufacturers and regional healthcare systems, and OpenAI’s ownership stake in Thrive Holdings. Jones makes the case for outcome-based pricing and deeper partnerships as ways to capture real value from AI.
📺 Source: AI News & Strategy Daily | Nate B Jones · Published October 25, 2026
🏷️ Format: Opinion Editorial
