u/Tornagh

I have been in the ServiceNow ecosystem since 2013. Their core benefit has always been the ability to unify data and workflows across different areas of IT (in practice) or the entire company (hypothetically) on one platform.

I had assumed that ServiceNow would double down on this concept with their attempts at becoming an AI company. Data in a unified format would be super valuable for AI models to figure out what to do. A unified way to trigger actions would be very valuable for AI agents.

But their actions imply they no longer care about this. They acquire off-platform solutions left and right, do not replatform them, and are actively competing with their own (or their build partner’s) on-platform apps with ServiceNow owned off-platform apps which ServiceNow actively markets.

It seems to me that they spend every single opportunity they get shoveling increasingly platform agnostic AI dreams, and wherever that conflicts with the unified platform model, they ditch the platform concept.

Meanwhile I barely hear them talking about the importance of unifying UX on the platform, the importance of unifying data in the common data model or the importance of a unified architecture and automation engine. I also don’t really see investments in said core platform. Every time I try to ask for new core features I get told about some new AI concept their own sales org can’t explain.

It seems to me that they have not only abandoned the core concept they have built their platform around, but actively undermine it at every opportunity.

I find it shocking that instead of repealing this outrageous Tory intrusion in grown adult's privacy, Labour only ever seems to talk about extending it. I am sure I am not alone in my disgust for this.

I don't care what kind of electoral opinion gamesmanship the party think they are playing at by doing this, but it seems rather obvious that neither reform nor the greens are struggling to get voters while vocally opposing the OSA.

Maybe sometimes having a spine is worth some votes too.

PS: If you are wondering, I did not change my vote due to the OSA at council elections, I do understand the two are unrelated. I just thought I will share this since there may be a leadership change in Labour soon and I am hoping the party changes direction about this topic.

Fellow regards, I have just had an enlightening conversation with a tech exec that I wanted to share.

Subscription based licensing means predictable high margin revenue. The economics drastically improve with scale as a 200k a year customer usually does not cost more to service than a 50k a year customer. Traditional seat based or org size based licensing models therefore lead to high valuation multiples.

Meanwhile, LLM reliant “AI” use cases require usage based licensing due to the high cost in compute of each workload. But usage based licensing is not predictable, and the costs do rise in tandem with revenue. AI usage based revenue is a bit like services revenue, and even within that category it is particularly unpredictable: You may have a lot of revenue today and very little revenue tomorrow because customers are not generally committed to long term minimum usage contracts.

So the reason ServiceNow and SalesForce stock prices are in the gutter is not just because some of the market thinks you can vibecode a platform in your garage over the weekend. It is also because usage based licensing models simply do not deserve the same revenue multiples in the eye of sophisticated investors, and both platforms have been forced to transition to a usage based model for some of their licensing to enable AI use cases on their platforms.

I am not saying current valuations are fair, I still think ServiceNow in particular is likely to recover and I hold stock myself, I just wanted to share this thought with you all.