software PM market analysis — 2026-09-24
Enterprise software distribution is consolidating around cloud marketplaces, with AWS Marketplace positioning itself to absorb metering, billing and collections so vendors can redirect effort towards marketing and sales.
NVIDIA’s reporting points to enterprise AI investment concentrating on improving existing workflows rather than chasing novel use cases, a sign that buyers are prioritising measurable operational gains over experimentation.
Forrester notes vendors are testing consumption-based AI monetisation, including usage credits and metered access, alongside traditional seat licensing. This creates a path to incremental revenue but also introduces pricing and adoption uncertainty that CIOs are weighing carefully. Octopus’s analysis of platform engineering reinforces this operational focus, describing growing emphasis on automation that links code changes through deployment and monitoring. Together, the evidence points to a market rewarding vendors who can demonstrate workflow efficiency and flexible pricing, while the shift away from predictable seat-based revenue remains an open question for adoption.
Worth Tracking
- Usage-based AI pricing adoptionWatch whether customers accept metered models as vendors look beyond seat-based licensing, per Forrester.
- Marketplace distribution dynamicsAWS Marketplace may cut operational friction for vendors but raise competition for buyer attention.
- Outcome-linked automationBuyers appear to favour tools connecting development, deployment and monitoring, per Octopus.
This analysis was generated automatically and is for information only — not financial advice.