SaaS vs. Agentic AI: What’s really changing? Who is impacted? How?

 

SaaS vs. Agentic AI: What’s really changing? Who is impacted? How?

Introduction:

The way we interact with software is undergoing a major transformation.

For years, Software as a Service (SaaS) has been the dominant model delivering tools through the cloud that are accessible, scalable, and user-friendly. Whether it's managing customer relationships, marketing campaigns, or internal operations, SaaS platforms have powered much of today’s digital business.

But now, a new generation of software is emerging: Agentic AI. Unlike SaaS applications, which require users to initiate actions and follow structured workflows, Agentic AI systems can autonomously plan, decide, and execute tasks to achieve a goal. These aren’t just smarter tools, they are digital agents that can collaborate with users, handle complexity, and adapt in real time.

This shift is more than just a trend. It represents a fundamental change in how software works and what users can expect from it.

In this blog, my aim is to break down the key differences between traditional SaaS and Agentic AI and explain why it’s poised to redefine productivity, decision-making, and digital experiences across industries.

SaaS vs. Agentic AI: Detailed Comparison Table Category SaaS (Software as a Service) Agentic AI Decision Making and Autonomy PASSIVE. Constantly waiting for user input.  Human-driven at every step   PRO-ACTIVE AI Driven, based on logic, rules, or LLM reasoning. Can take initiative and complete tasks on your behalf without micromanagement Goal Oriented or Task Oriented Task Oriented (user-initiated) Goal Oriented (AI-initiated or autonomous) Human-AI Interaction Manual Interaction using forms, buttons, menus (Structured GUI) Automatic or AI Interaction Uses natural language (Type your intent) User Interaction Manual interaction through UI, forms, dashboards Natural language input (text/voice), goal-based commands User Role Operator: user performs tasks using the tool Director: user sets the goal, agent handles execution Interface Traditional GUI (buttons, menus, forms) Conversational (chat, voice, prompts) Task Execution Single-step, user-initiated Multi-step, AI-initiated or autonomous Learning/Adaptivity Predefined workflows, minimal adaptivity Dynamic, responsive to feedback, learns from context over time Tool Use Limited to built-in integrations Agents can use APIs, search, access tools, write code, automate Workflow Design Hardcoded flows (e.g., Zapier, HubSpot pipeline builder) Agents can dynamically plan, adjust, and replan flows Personalization Limited to rules and user segments Hyper-personalized through behavioral data + LLM inferences Setup/Configuration High setup time, onboarding complexity Minimal setup; just define a goal or context Responsiveness to Change Manual reconfiguration needed Agents can adjust in real time to changing input or goals Collaboration Users collaborate inside the tool Agent becomes a collaborator alongside humans Error Handling Defined by user rules or fail states Agents attempt to self-correct, retry, or ask clarifying questions Scalability of Tasks Scales with more users or more licenses Scales with more agents or automated workflows Data Handling Structured input/output Can work with structured, semi-structured, or unstructured data

 

Who Is Impacted by the Shift from SaaS to Agentic AI?

Role / Group	SaaS Era	Agentic AI Era	Key Impact
End Users	Manual interaction with tools and workflows	Delegate goals to AI agents that plan and act	Productivity gains, less complexity, software becomes a partner not just a tool
Product Managers & Designers	Design features, UX flows, and manual workflows	Design for intent, delegation, and collaboration with AI agents	Shift from UI/UX to intent fulfillment and AI-human collaboration
Engineers & Developers	Build APIs, integrations, and deterministic logic	Build reasoning engines, orchestration layers, and adaptive systems	Increased focus on autonomy, decision logic, and system-wide AI coordination
Business Leaders & Executives	Optimize workflows, measure efficiency gains	Rethink org structure, pricing, and strategy with AI as a value driver	New business models, outcome-based pricing, strategic agility
IT & Security Teams	Manage user access, data security, and app connections	Govern AI behavior, ensure explainability, and monitor agent actions	Greater responsibility for AI control, compliance, and governance frameworks
Customers	Interact with static interfaces, forms, and limited bots	Receive proactive, personalized service via intelligent agents	Elevated expectations for seamless, intelligent, human-like digital experiences

Challenges & Considerations in this Transition from SAAS to Agentic AI

Concern	Agentic AI Response
Loss of control	Agents can include human-in-the-loop checkpoints
Security risks	Needs guardrails, access controls, and sandboxing
Data privacy	Clear boundaries, encryption, and on-premise options for sensitive use cases
Explainability	Agents must log decisions and offer transparency when needed
Reliability	Redundant checks and fallback plans in autonomous operations

Impact of Agentic AI deployments

Agentic AI significantly boosts efficiency by automating routine and complex decisions, reducing the cognitive load on employees, and allowing them to focus on strategic, creative, and high-value work. Agentic AI adapts to dynamic environments in real-time, predicts outcomes, identifies bottlenecks before they occur, and continuously learns to improve its performance, which transforms how organizations operate and innovate.

Agentic AI is going to redefine industries by acting as an autonomous collaborator that elevates productivity, enhances complex decision-making, and creates smarter, more adaptive digital experiences. Its ability to learn, predict, and respond in real-time positions it as a transformative force driving innovation and competitive advantage across sectors.

Conclusion

The shift from SaaS to Agentic AI is a fundamental redefinition of how we interact with software. SaaS empowered users with access and tools; Agentic AI empowers them with intelligent collaborators.

As we move forward:

• SaaS will become the host environment.
• Agents will become the doers.
• Users will shift from operators to orchestrators of intelligent systems.

 

Personalized Smart Video is the much-desired breakthrough for the Education Industry

Definition

A personalized video is any video content that’s customized and relevant to each one of your audience groups, be it prospects, customers, or influencers.

Examples of personalized video in education

There are numerous ways of personalizing video in education or for the education industry. In addition to delivering a printed text report in person to the student and parents, schools can also deliver them a personalized video report card, with a personal greeting to start with followed by a report summary & then educating the student about how he fared in different subjects. This can be followed with a specific guidance from the teacher. Imagine what a personalized video report can do for parents and how it can motivate and influence them to participate in the all-round development of their child. One can easily visualize how a personalized report can assist a high school student to enumerate all his or her options including career & college choices. This can compliment the college planning process.

Benefits of personalized smart video

• Creates a meaningful and thoughtful customer experience for students and parents
• Makes it easy for students to comprehend their regular progress reports and report card.
• Makes it easy for parents to comprehend where their child stands and find out the areas of improvement
• Empowers teachers to provide personalized guidance for students belonging to different categories
• Builds a motivated student and parent audience, who want to participate in improving education
• Streamlines the communication between the teacher, student and parent community

Statistics below already demonstrate how the use of video is delivering a lot of ROI for all industries in general. This can only be further enhanced with the user of personalized video, whether it is education industry or otherwise.

• A video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80%
• 80% of customers remember a video they have watched in the last month (HubSpot)
• A video in an email leads to 200-300% increase in click-through rate
• Consumers, who watch a video are 64-84% more likely to make a purchase

Platforms and tools for creating video

Startups like SundaySky, Ideomoo, Vidyard and several others are building generic platforms and tools to create personalized video from the organized data and applications. With the latest technologies available today, automating the video creation process for each category or a group is feasible and also economical, considering the ever increasing availability of video production platforms. In addition, harnessing the use of metadata to personalize a video asset is getting better every day.

Personalized video in education

Educational Organizations have begun to understand the power of video and how it can assist the student community. There are a number of healthy trends like using augmented reality or other visual technologies to improve how education is rendered in the schools. Along with these new trends, building technologies, platforms and tools for personalized video can assist them to address the challenges of student community and more importantly, it streamlines the communication between students, teachers and parents.

OTT Video in India

OTT Video in India:

• Total Mobile Subscribers - ~933 Million 2^nd Largest in the World.
• Total Internet User base ~230 Million
• Total number of monthly active video users in India rising from 12.3 million people in 2014 to more than 105 million by 2020.
• Total OTT TV and video revenues in the Asia Pacific region will reach $3,628 million in 2015 and $11,293 Million in 2020.
• One estimate points out that the OTT revenues in India is expected to reach around (US) $300 Million in 2020.
• Advertising will continue to drive India's OTT video ecosystem however, contributing more than 75% to overall OTT revenues.
• Pay-TV Arpus ( average revenue per user ) are relatively low in India, at US$3-4 a month.

 Interesting news update :  

1. HOOQ, touted as Asia's answer to streaming service Netflix, has launched a beta version of its premium video-on-demand service in India from May 2015.
   The four-month-old start-up joint venture between Singaporean telecom giant Singtel, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros
2. Star India released a beta version of Hotstar, an ad supported video stream service that provides access to TV programming, Movies on 3G & 4G phones.
3. Two other powerful players, Airtel and Reliance, are also poised to enter the market with services of their own, signaling the start of a major shift in OTT video dynamics in India.
4. Hungama.com, an Indian player in the music and video streaming services, seems to make it big on the global platform as they claim to have 50 million monthly active users of their services. With these statistics they are well placed amongst the top 5 global players like Pandora and Spotify. 
5. The $2/$3 Apple Music Pricing Set To Disrupt Indian Music Streaming Industry!               http://trak.in/tags/business/2015/07/03/apple-music-india-pricing-disrupt-music-streaming/

 

Online Video Platform (OVP) – Features and Options

Online Video Platform (abbreviated as OVP) is a SAAS solution (Software as a Service), which enables Companies to manage and publish video files to audiences on every screen. To be precise, Online Video Platform allow Media Companies to ingest, manage, protect, publish, syndicate, track and monetize online Video to their Customers across multiple platforms and devices. The Online Video Platforms also enable integrated advertising and gathering business intelligent analytics data.

The primary features of Online Video Platform Solution are as follows:

1.     Video Upload and Ingestion Feature

This feature enables content owners to upload, manage and deliver video over the Internet for viewing across desktops, mobile and connected devices

There are different options provided by OVPs to upload and ingest Video.

i)            Browser Based Ingestion

ii)           FTP upload

iii)          Automated Ingestion via drop folder

iv)          Email Upload

v)           Mobile Upload

vi)          Create Custom Upload App using OVP provided APIs

All OVPs share the common goal of automating and simplifying the various steps involved in upload and uploading videos. The Automation goal can be extended to all features provided by OVP.

2.    Video Encoding, Publishing and Management

This feature allows the users the best viewing experience on their intended target device. Video Publishing feature provides control over when and where your video content is published. Publishing can be done on devices like Roku, Boxee, Apple TV or other Set top boxes with the click of a button.

OVPs also provide an ability to upload the file from the local source to cloud-based storage. This can typically take place either one file at a time or in batches. As part of the upload process, the video file is transcoded and delivered to various sizes and qualities. It is the video transcoding process that optimizes the video to appear in the best possible quality on any given viewing device or connection speed.

3.    Online Video Player

The online video player is the primary viewer experience, serving as the context in which your Video content will appear. Most of these Online Video Players are light weight and therefore very responsive.

• OVP's offer numerous player templates along with vertical or horizontal playlists.
• OVP's also provide several other customization options that allow you to create a player that best fits the environment and the best experience you are trying to achieve.
• The Online Video players will provide ability to control and interact with the content with everything from pause, rewind and fast forward functions
• They provide options for sharing or embedding on social sites.

4.    Video Syndication

This feature allows taking a single video and distributing it across as many video channels as possible. The more places the video appears, there is a better likelihood that users will watch the Video and your brand is popularized.

5.    Video Analytics

This feature allows the Companies to gain business insights, review user trends and find out if content exposure & syndication strategies have paid off.

Different kinds of Analytics Reports can be built to find out

a)    Which content is most watched by end users

b)   Geographical distribution of all the users

c)    Find out how many videos have been embedded outside of your own site

d)   Learn which devices, OS, Browsers and Applications are used by users

OVPs also provide an ability to integrate with other 3^rd Party Analytics Tools.

6.    Video Monetization

This feature allows the Companies to monetize their Video by choosing one or multiple options

a)    Monetize Video by selling Ads

b)   Monetize Video through pay per view

c)    Monetize Video through Sponsorships

d)   Monetize Video through Merchandise

e)    Monetize Video through Freemium or other Hybrid Method

f)    Monetize Video via Licensing

 

Benefits of Online Video Platform

a)   Evangelize your Products Online
b)  Increase Ad Revenue or Conversion rates
c)  Advanced Targeting via increased distribution
d)  Increase Brand Awareness
e)  Monetize your Content

Online Video Platforms are getting built and enhanced with wide array of capabilities from content management, encoding, advertising, syndication and monetization. As the market further expands and consolidates more choices become available and education becomes key to better understand, purchase and deploy the solutions available. 

Streaming Video - Past, Current & Future

Streaming Video - Past, Current & Future

Past - History

1) 1997 : Real Networks ( started by ex-Microsoft Rob Glaser ) launched the first video streaming.
    A baseball game was streamed between the Yankees and Seattle Mariners - on September 5th,   1995.

2) 1997: Microsoft introduced DirectShow, which allowed streaming media and then later merged into Windows Media Player. ASF File format referred to as Multiple Bit Rate ASF allowed storage of multiple video and audio tracks in a single file.

DirectShow became a standard component, when Windows launched Windows 98.

3) 2002 : Adobe announced the unified streaming format - which merged the Web and Streaming Media for the 1st time. This product took the industry by storm however had issues relating to bandwidth, scalability & reliability.

4) 2007 : A Company named Move Networks ( later bought by EchoStar ) invented the HTTP based adaptive Streaming. This Startup used the standard HTTP protocol to deliver media in small chunks.

5) 2008 : Microsoft launched Smooth Streaming Technology now based on plain HTTP protocol.

6) 2010 : Adobe joined the party in 2010 with HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS).

 7) 2012 : a new standard was born – Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, known as MPEG-DASH.

CURRENT SITUATION - WHAT IS HAPPENING IN VIDEO STREAMING ?

Netflix

Netflix becomes the first Video Streaming Company to air original programming to end Customers.
Back in January 2013, Netflix released its original program House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey.

Netflix released the much-anticipated fourth season of “Arrested Development” on May 26. There has been a tremendous positive response to this release.

YouTube

During the recent I/O conference, Google announced that its live streaming service will allow operators to broadcast live content to viewers on all devices. Some 53 paid channels have been added to the YouTube website, as part of the YouTube partner program. A small group of partners will also offer paid channels on YouTube with subscription fees starting at $0.99 per month.

ABC News 24 is planning to stream news broadcast live on YouTube.

Amazon

Amazon, a key player in Video Streaming services is planning to air original programming to end-users. Amazon announced multi-year deal with Viacom to bring 4000 more TV episodes to instant video customers.  Amazon announced last week that it's creating five original TV series including a political comedy with John Goodman.

Amazon seems to be interested in adding market share at this point of time and has a well thought out long term strategy in this space. Amazon is said to be losing between $500 Million to $1 Billion a year on Video Streaming however is making consistent efforts to provide the best value for its prime customers.

Hulu

Hulu has gained rights this year to stream current-season episodes from Nickelodeon and CBS.

Among the other Nickelodeon shows available on the streaming site are Robot & Monster, The Penguins of Madagascar, The Legend of Korra and the recently rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Hulu's revenue in 2013 grew 65% to $695 million compared to last year. However Hulu has not been able to make more profit considering it spends lots of money in purchasing content.

Dish
Dish is one traditional satellite provider, who has spent good amount of efforts in streaming video through its products and services as DISH Anywhere, and Hopper with Sling.

Video Streaming Market Share
According to a survey released Tuesday by Sandvine, Netflix has 32.3 percent of the market share, while YouTube has 17.1 percent, Hulu has 2.4 percent, and Amazon has 1.31 percent.

Apple iTunes

Apple is THE most prominent player in Online Music, Video and Video On Demand business.
iTunes has a market share of 45% in the Music & Video On Demand market space. iTunes Store is the 2nd fastest growing revenue stream with a quarterly revenue of $4 Billion. According to reliable reports, Apple is building a new Set-top box device for live TV broadcast. Apple will be one of the most formidable player on Video Streaming in the near and long term future.

FUTURE OF VIDEO STREAMING

According to a Insight Research Report, Streaming Video and Music will generate $70 billion in revenue over the next six years.

The current Subscription Model on Video Streaming will continue to be prime business model beyond 2013. A new monetization model beyond the traditional and subscription service may arrive after few years.

MPEG Dash seems to be the future of online Video Streaming. A list of 60 big Companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Akamai, Ericsson, and Viacom are investing in the Mpeg Dash.  DASH allows not only adaptive streaming, but it can also carry multilingual audio tracks and closed captioning. The stream can also have Digital Rights Management (DRM) encryption that protects copyrighted video from potential video pirates.

Traditional Cable and Satellite Companies like Comcast, Dish and several others are already adopting to the Video Streaming's future. These Companies are complimenting their traditional service with other new services and solutions built on video streaming protocols.

It seems to be seen whether the Streaming Services will eventually kill the traditional TV however this is the direction it is heading as of right now.

There is one sure winner here. The Customer.

Note : My sources to this blog are other news articles and blogs written on Online Video & Video Streaming. My goal is to present all the facts in this specific format in addition to sharing my knowledge in this space.