AI Pricing Has 4 Possible Futures, Which One Are You Building For with Steven Forth

Steven Forth is a principal at PatternMind and co-author of Pricing for the Agent Economy, with deep expertise in pricing strategy, scenario planning, and the emerging agent economy.  In this episode, he brings a different way of thinking about AI pricing: instead of trying to predict one future, build strategies that can survive several possible futures. Mark challenges Steven throughout the conversation, particularly around value attribution and credit pricing, creating a fascinating debate about whether outcome-based pricing is truly scalable, whether credits will survive, and what AI buyers may demand next.   Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Learn how scenario planning can help you prepare for multiple AI pricing futures instead of betting on one forecast. Discover how value attribution and credit adoption create four possible paths for AI pricing—and what each means for your business. Understand why credits, outcome-based pricing, and fungibility could reshape how buyers and vendors exchange value in the agent economy.   "Rather than thinking about, how are you going to predict what's going to happen? It's, what are the early indicators? What are the early warning system you can put in place?"  — Steven Forth   Topics Covered: 01:15 – Why Forecasting Isn't Enough for AI Pricing. Steven explains why traditional linear forecasts assume one future while scenario planning prepares for multiple possible futures—especially when major uncertainties could fundamentally change the market. 04:00 – The Critical Uncertainties You Need to Track. Learn why identifying uncertainties isn't enough—you need to watch for early evidence and warning signals showing which future is beginning to emerge. 05:30 – What COVID Taught Steven About Agile Scenario Planning. Steven shares how the pandemic exposed the limits of traditional scenario planning and led to a faster approach focused on cycling through critical uncertainties as conditions change. 08:00 – Why AI Makes Agile Scenario Planning More Important. With generative AI moving rapidly and no one knowing exactly how the market will evolve, Steven explains why businesses need to remain open to a wider range of possible futures. 09:30 – Will AI Software Still Be Differentiated? Steven explores whether generative AI will wash out software differentiation and whether large language models themselves will eventually converge. 12:00 – The Credit Fungibility Question. Discover why buyers may want credits that work across ecosystems while platform companies could benefit from making credits transferable—and why smaller vendors may resist. 14:00 – Why Buyers, Platforms, and Niche Vendors Want Different Things. Steven breaks down the competing incentives of buyers, ecosystem platforms, and focused vendors and explains why the future of credits may depend on which group has the most power. 16:00 – The 4 Possible Futures for AI Pricing. Steven introduces the two critical uncertainties—value attribution and credit adoption—and shows how combining them creates four distinct pricing futures. 18:00 – From "Blind Faith Credits" to the Outcome Rush. Explore what happens when buyers resist credits and value attribution remains difficult versus a future where outcome-based pricing becomes easier and more scalable. 20:00 – What Niche Vendors Should Do in Each Scenario. Steven explains how pricing strategy changes depending on which future emerges—and why companies that can move fastest toward outcome-based pricing could dominate their markets. 22:00 – The Three Hurdles to Outcome-Based Pricing. Learn why outcome pricing requires agreement on the outcome, the ability to determine who contributed to the value, and enough predictability to make the economics work. 24:00 – Mark Challenges the Value Attribution Problem. Mark argues that pricing metrics already solve one form of attribution, while Steven clarifies the harder question: who actually contributed to the economic value created for the buyer? 26:00 – Can AI Actually Claim the Economic Outcome? The conversation explores why customer support resolution is a promising niche case for outcome pricing—but why multi-agent value attribution remains an open question. 28:00 – Why Credits Are Really a Pricing Currency. Mark argues that credits function like a company's internal currency, while Steven points out that credits can support multiple pricing metrics and flexible consumption. 30:00 – Will Buyers Eventually Reject Credits? Mark challenges whether buyers actually want credits, while Steven suggests the more important question may be which vendors figure out how to move beyond them first. 32:00 – The Pricing Advice AI Leaders Need in 2026. Steven's final advice: understand how your buyers are using AI to make purchasing decisions—or risk making critical pricing mistakes.   Key Takeaways: "The future is not set. And that there is more than one possible future. And that different futures could emerge in different parts of the market." — Steven Forth "We have to be open to a fairly wide range of different futures and agile scenario planning I think is a better way to do that." — Steven Forth "If your strategy is only viable on one scenario, you're accepting a lot of risk into your organization that you don't need to." — Steven Forth   People / Resources Mentioned: Michael Mansard & Wolfgang Ulaga — Steven's co-authors on Pricing for the Agent Economy. Shell — Mentioned in Steven's discussion of traditional scenario planning. Rotterdam — Steven references the city's scenario-planning approach, where major infrastructure investments were designed to remain viable across multiple scenarios. Lovable & Perplexity — Examples of companies using credit-based pricing and the different ways buyers have responded to those models. Salesforce, SAP, Oracle & Microsoft — Discussed as ecosystem platforms that may have incentives to make credits fungible within their ecosystems. Scenarios for Pricing in the Agent Economy — Steven's Substack article that provides the framework discussed in this episode.   Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/  Substack: Search for Steven Forth on Substack https://pricinginnovation.substack.com/  for his writing on pricing, scenario planning, and the agent economy. Email: [email protected]   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]