Prompts to read Value Pricing and Billing for the agent economy
Steven Forth is CEO of Ibbaka. Connect on LinkedIn
Value Pricing and Billing for the Agent Economy, published April 24, 2025, is the first in depth study of how pricing and billing will work in the agent economy.
You can download the full report here.
The report is rather long, over 90 pages with more than 30 figures. It includes a glossary of terms used and extensive references. That is a lot to read and different people will want to get different insights.
To make things easier, we have summarized the report for different roles and for two different situations. We used the generative AI Perplexity to do this. If you prefer to run this through your own AI you can copy the prompt and put it through your own system. You could even add additional context about your own agents and agent strategy to personalize insights from the report.
Skip to the bottom if you don’t need context and want to get to the summary most relevant for you.
(A template for the prompt is added at the end of this post.)
Agent as Complement vs. Agent First
Companies that already have an enterprise application will think differently about how to introduce and price agents than companies that are new to the market and are running an agent first strategy.
Even if agents become the primary way of providing access to functionality, and conventional user interfaces wither away (as Jakob Nielsen has suggested is happening, think of the change in search applications) there will remain a thick layer of business logic and data embodied in conventional applications. This is not going away. In the technology world we tend to see new functionality and interfaces layered on top of what exists rather than replacing it. There are still many critical business systems written in COBOL or Fortran (and most of the world’s climate models and weather prediction systems, cutting edge programming, are in Fortran). This is similar to the way human brain layers new structures over old; neurologists speak in terms of the hindbrain, midbrain and the forebrain. Agents and interactions between agents will be the neocortex of AI applications.
Agents as a Complement
Over the next five years, most user interactions with ERPs (Enterprise Resource Management), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), HRIS , SCM, Search and other key enterprise software will be through agents. Integrations will also be through agents. And a lot of innovation (not all) will happen at the agent layer).
Interactions, integrations, innovations will be driven by agents. What about monetization?
We are seeing three approaches here.
Agents are added to crete value and new interactions but are not moentized
An agent enriched premium offer is provided
Agents are charged separately, as add ons
Another tactic we are seeing a lot is application providers giving their customers the ability to create their own custom agents, more on this, and the pricing strategies that work for this, in a coming post.
Agent First
Other companies are starting with a blank canvas and creating new ‘hello world’ agents and agent families. Here there is no underlying application to rely on and the agents are doing all the work (and the AI and in many cases there is still a databased in the background).
Monetization options are simpler here.
Charge for each agent
Charge for bundles of agents
Charge for workflows (especially successful workflows)
Som agent first companies are also experimenting with giving users the ability to create their own personalized agents that integrate with other agents being provdided. This has its own pricing challenges which we will also explore.
Five Roles Concerned with Agent Pricing and Billing
A transformation as big as the shift to the agent economy involves many people with many different roles. From the pricing and billing perspective we identified six key roles.
Chief Product Officer
Chief Revenue Officer
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Value Officer
Pricing Leader
Chief Product Officer
The person charged with designing the overall approach to agents, defining their functionality, guiding UX design, and in some companies setting price.
Chief Revenue Officer
The person who has to get revenue and growth from these agents. Also very concerned with their pricing and how to communicate and capture value.
Chief Financial Officer
The person who needs to understand what all this means to cashflow and the profit and loss statement. Often responsible for making sure that the whole quote to cash process runs smoothly and accountable for revenue recognition.
Chief Value Officer
An emergent role. This is the person in the company responsible for making sure that the company is delivering value to customers and is responsible for the Value to Customer (V2C) metric.
Pricing Leader
Ibbaka has deep roots in the pricing community, so we had to include this role. The pricing leader is generally responsible for pricing design and works with the CRO and deal desk to price specific deals.
Ten Prompts to Read the Value Pricing and Billing for the Agent Economy Report
Combining the two scenarios and five roles gives ten different prompts you can use to summarize the report. Pick your scenario and role to get a focussed view.
Agents as a Complement x Chief Product Officer
Agents as a Complement x Chief Revenue Officer
Agents as a Complement x Chief Financial Officer
Agents as a Complement x Chief Value Officer
Agents as a Complement x Pricing Leader
Agent First x Chief Product Officer
Agent First x Chief Revenue Officer
Agent First x Chief Financial Officer
Agent First x Chief Value Officer
A prompt template for you to customize
Here is a standard prompt template you can use to explore this report (or other reports) from the perspective of different roles. It has been tested on several different models on Perplexity, on Google Genesis and on OpenAI ChatGPT.
Customize by filling in the [square brackets]. You can use the descriptions above for this or craft your own.
Note that the repetitions are intentional as in testing we have found this generates better results.
<goal>
Summarize the attached report on Value Pricing and Billing for the Agent Economy.
The summary is for the [Role] of a [describe the scenario under which agents are being introduced].
Focus on the following areas.
What is changing?
Why is it changing?
Implications for product management and product strategy.
Actions to take.
</goal>
<role>
As the [Role] of [describe the scenario under which agents are being introduced] you are responsible for [description of key responsibilities of the role].
</role>
<context>
Summarize the attached Ibbaka report on Value Pricing and Billing for the Agent Economy.
Research other context on value, pricing and billing for the agent economy.
Reference these sites for general ideas about agents.
Hello AI Agents: Goodbye UI Design, RIP Accessibility by Jakob Nielsen
Business model invention in the AI era by Bessemer Venture Partners
The Agent Economy by Dan Batus and Mischa Vaughn
</context>
<task>
Summarize the attached report on Value Pricing and Billing for the Agent Economy making sure to cover the following.
What is changing in the agent economy?
Why is it changing?
Implications for product management and product strategy.
Implications for pricing
Actions to take.
</task>
<summary>
As the [Role] of [describe the scenario under which agents are being introduced], summarize the attached report and prepare recommendations.
</summary>
Conclusion
The agent economy is transforming how software is delivered and monetized. As highlighted in Value Pricing and Billing for the Agent Economy, organizations must rethink pricing strategies to align with the real value agents provide. Rather than replacing existing business logic, agents add new layers-much like the human brain evolves by building upon its core structures.
The report’s frameworks, such as the Ibbaka Agentic AI Pricing Layer Cake, help companies create flexible, outcome-based pricing models that reflect customer value. Hybrid approaches-combining role, access, usage, and outcomes-are emerging as best practices.
Whether you’re integrating agents into existing systems or adopting an agent-first approach, mastering value-based pricing is key to success in this new landscape. Equip your teams with the right tools and strategies to lead confidently in the evolving agent economy.
