When AI changes the work, the buyer will change with it.
This is a thought experiment for enterprise software—and the people researching its buyers.
An org chart shows where people sit. A “task chart” shows what they do. In this imagined software company, look past two titles to some of the work inside them.
Keep those tasks in mind.
Now let's change the workforce.
Choose an assumed reduction. Watch the gaps appear.
Then ask what the remaining people might inherit.
Assumed workforce reduction over twelve months—not a forecast. Sources & assumptions
240 dots represent a historical software-publisher workforce mix, not individual buyers. Positions are illustrative.
Software businesses bring together technical, management, commercial and other roles. Their work creates needs for tools—and people who evaluate them.
A workforce map is a starting point. It doesn’t tell us who holds the budget, who champions a product, or who can say no.
Imagine task savings become staffing reductions. In this scenario, dots begin to leave the field. The empty spaces stay visible.
That is a choice in our stress test—not an inevitable consequence of AI. Productivity gains could also change tasks or support more output.
The assumed reduction is complete. We sort the surviving dots by occupation so you can see who remains. This is a change of view—not evidence that an organization restructured.
Now move from the industry view to one imagined purchase: a software company choosing a CRM. What happens if its business systems analyst role is removed and the work is reassigned?
Follow one imagined CRM evaluation below: the role disappears, but the decision work remains.
The people remain visible. Their responsibilities may not. A familiar title could now describe a very different job.
A RevOps director may now own an evaluation once handled by a dedicated analyst. Research needs to uncover that inherited work—and the constraints that come with it.
Return to the tasks from the opening scene. In this imagined company, the analyst role is removed. The RevOps director inherits the CRM evaluation. Their existing work stays, too.
An imagined handoff, independent of the workforce percentages above. This is not an observed authority transfer or a prediction.
Revenue reporting · Process operations
The analyst role is gone.
The evaluation still needs an owner.
In this example, security review and budget approval stay with their existing owners.
Today the business systems analyst gathers user requirements, tests workflows and builds a vendor shortlist. In the imagined tomorrow, the analyst role is removed. All three tasks pass to the RevOps director, alongside revenue reporting and process operations.
You found the RevOps director. But a research guide built for their old job would miss the evaluation work they just inherited.
Recruit for current responsibility. Ask about work inherited from another person or team.
Explore the evaluation they can actually run, alongside the work already on their plate.
Investigate requirements, shortlists, approval and value separately. Let the buyer describe the change.
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2023 OEWS: Software Publishers (NAICS 513200). Total employment: 653,900. This is a historical U.S. industry proxy, not a current B2B enterprise-software-only workforce. It includes consumer software publishers.
Published shares: Computer and Mathematical Occupations 45.59%; Management 17.03%; Business and Financial Operations 13.65%; all remaining occupations 23.73%. “Technical roles” is the display label for the official Computer and Mathematical group.
The 240 representative dots are apportioned as 109, 41, 33 and 57. Their coordinates and movement are illustrative—not measured organizational relationships. The final rows simply sort the surviving dots by their original occupational group. The separate CRM example imagines a removed analyst role and reassigned duties; it is not derived from BLS data, calibrated to the stress tests, or evidence of actual authority transfer. They do not identify buyers or represent specific companies.
The reductions are deliberately chosen stress tests. We do not assign probabilities or claim these outcomes are likely. The hypothetical twelve-month clock is not a dated forecast.
All three factors are assumptions. Reductions are applied proportionally across groups; we have not invented occupational risk rankings. Dot counts are rounded, so the 6% scenario removes 14 of 240 dots (approximately 5.8%); the 15% and 30% scenarios remove 36 and 72. Headline percentages show the selected assumption.
The model excludes new jobs, hiring, output expansion, substitution, and macroeconomic feedback. Buying-role changes are questions to research, not estimated effects.
The ILO’s 2025 update on generative AI and jobs provides context for distinguishing task exposure from job outcomes. It does not calibrate our reduction assumptions. This page combines an attributed public baseline with an Emporia editorial exercise; it is not an original empirical study.