Bombos teamBy Piet Baudoin · 26 September 2026
Microsoft is putting agents that work all day into Copilot and charging for them by usage, while ABN Amro, one of the largest Dutch banks, sees IT providers moving away from billing by the hour. Today: what a meter on your AI means, what you can ask your provider, and how many of your people already use AI.
What is changing in Copilot?
Microsoft announced a new Copilot app yesterday. It “adds sections called Home, which combines chat with Microsoft’s Cowork agent; Code, which lets people build their own apps and tools by describing them; and Autopilot, where people can set up their own always-on AI agents.” Full versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are built in. Autopilot goes into private preview at the end of this month.
Watch the bill. Chat is priced per user per month, but the work of the agents is billed by usage. An agent that is always on keeps the meter running. Jacob Andreou, who leads Copilot: “The hallmark of an amazing, long-running agent is autonomy and flexibility. That is the same thing that makes them absolutely terrifying to an IT admin.”
What such an agent costs for ten people is in what does an AI agent cost per month, and how long it can work alone in what is an AI agent.
Source: GeekWire, 25 September 2026
Why is your IT provider dropping hourly billing?
ABN Amro writes in an analysis that AI is forcing IT service providers to charge differently. Sector expert Julia Krauwer: “Wie uren blijft verkopen, ziet ai vooral aan de omzet knagen; wie verantwoordelijkheid neemt voor het resultaat, kan er juist meer aan verdienen.” In English: those who keep selling hours will see AI eat into their revenue; those who take responsibility for the result can earn more from it.
The business owners in the piece say it plainly. Wout Withagen of Freshheads, a Dutch digital agency: “Die hogere productiviteit klinkt positief, maar een bureau dat uren verkoopt, moet twee keer zoveel werk binnenhalen om dezelfde omzet te behalen.” That is: higher productivity sounds good, but an agency that sells hours has to win twice as much work to make the same revenue. Gijs Martens of Gen25, an IT services firm: “Als we bijdragen aan omzetgroei, kunnen we bijvoorbeeld afspreken dat een deel van onze vergoeding meebeweegt met die groei.” Meaning: if we contribute to revenue growth, part of our fee can move with that growth.
For you as a client, that is one question at the next quote: am I paying for hours, or for a result?
Source: Computable, 24 September 2026
How many Dutch people already use AI several times a week?
From the study “AI in Nederland 2026” by pollster Maurice de Hond (Peil.nl) and Vincent Everts, among about six thousand Dutch people: “Het aandeel Nederlanders dat ai meerdere keren per week of enkele keren per dag gebruikt, nam toe van slechts 8 procent in januari 2024 naar 45 procent in september 2026.” In English: the share of Dutch people who use AI several times a week or several times a day rose from just 8 percent in January 2024 to 45 percent in September 2026. And: “Commerciële functies lopen inmiddels voorop met 81 procent intensief gebruik”, meaning sales roles now lead with 81 percent intensive use.
Apply that to your business: chances are your salespeople and your office staff already use AI, with or without an agreement about it.
Source: Computable, 22 September 2026
What are people saying?
Outside the trade press, the people who work with it are talking. Four voices from this week, from accounts with a track record.
Patrick Moorhead, technology analyst, on the meter in Copilot:
Seat plus meter. Agents don't have headcount, so per-seat was never going to hold. Right move. But Microsoft says AI spend shouldn't be a mystery and hasn't published credit rates yet. CFOs need that number.
@PatrickMoorhead · 25 September 2026
On r/nederlands, the Dutch-language subreddit, someone asked this morning what AI does to your skills. An IT professional who has written code for years (in Dutch, translated below):
Ik merk dat ik de laatste maanden door AI last begin te krijgen van een bore out. De laatste maanden kan de AI eigenlijk alles zelf, en veel beter en sneller dan ik ooit kan doen. Mijn bijdrage is inmiddels niet meer dan een prompt invoeren en dan twee uur lang op "allow" en "always allow" te klikken.
u/RCL_D · 26 September 2026
Translation: for the past few months, AI has been giving me a bore-out. It can do pretty much everything itself now, far better and faster than I ever could. My contribution is typing a prompt and then clicking “allow” and “always allow” for two hours.
A reply below it, from someone who says they work in the AI industry:
AI oogt vooral magisch als je iets zelf niet kan. Wat het doet, doet het vooral een beetje op medior niveau in het algemeen. Het lijkt dus geweldig omdat je geen kenner op het desbetreffende vakgebied bent.
u/null-interlinked · 26 September 2026
Translation: AI looks magical mostly when you cannot do the thing yourself. What it does, it does at roughly mid-level. It seems brilliant because you are not an expert in that field.
And on r/sysadmin, where the administrators are, an IT director argued that AI is the cloud hype of 2010 all over again. The top reply, with over seven hundred votes, in one sentence:
I mean, the cloud has absolutely transformed IT and business in general.
u/moobycow · 23 September 2026
The takeaway: the people building it are clicking “allow”; the people paying for it want a fixed amount. That is exactly where the work of the next few years sits.
Where is this heading?
Microsoft puts a meter on its agents, and ABN Amro sees providers moving from hours to results. So the cost of AI shifts to a counter that keeps running, and the value shifts to what actually gets done.
My expectation: within a year or two, you will no longer buy AI per user or per tick, but per outcome. Whoever hands you a meter also hands you the job of watching it.
At Bombos, that is already how it works by then: a fixed amount per month, no meter, and an outcome you can hold us to.
What does this mean for your business?
AI is already on your work floor, the makers are building agents that work all day with a meter on them, and the providers around you are moving from hours to results.
Bombos starts with one task. For timesheets, Bombos pulls the hours out of email, photos and Excel files and stages them in your software; you approve before anything is booked. Our promise for processing timesheets: the hours are done at the end of the week. That is the first task, not the whole offer: after that, your business delivers more work of higher quality with the same people.
Sources
Every source was opened on 26 September 2026 and every quote appears in it word for word.
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