A fictional artificial intelligence company has accused its investors of moving the goalposts after they asked whether anybody was paying for the product.
For eighteen months, TomorrowLayer had enjoyed a productive relationship with its backers. The company announced a larger model, the backers supplied a larger cheque, and both parties agreed that the relationship was becoming more productive.
The difficulty began when an accountant joined a product demonstration and asked to see the revenue. Engineers initially assumed this was a new benchmark and explained that the next release would score considerably higher on it.
“We are seeing extraordinary adoption,” said the invented chief executive. Asked whether this meant subscriptions, she explained that it included free trials, conference demonstrations and a consultant who had opened the application while looking for something else.
The company’s most promising customer is a procurement team evaluating six different AI assistants. Each assistant has been asked to summarise why the other five should not be purchased. TomorrowLayer has described the exercise as a major enterprise deployment.
An internal review found that the service could save a manager forty minutes drafting an email. The manager then spent fifty minutes checking whether the email had offered a discount, invented a supplier or addressed the finance director as “Dearest Innovator”. The pilot was extended to capture the learning.
The commercial team has proposed a clearer pricing model. Customers will pay per unit of value, with value defined as whatever makes the invoice difficult to compare with last year’s software bill.
A second proposal would charge for the work the system might eventually perform. Finance liked this approach because it aligned future capability with present cash collection. Legal asked whether the future could be made more specific.
At the next board meeting, the accountant returned with a simple table showing money received and money spent. Several directors praised its clarity and asked which model had generated it.
TomorrowLayer remains confident that its technology will transform business. In the meantime, it is seeking a smaller, more immediate breakthrough: a customer who continues using the product after the free period ends.
