Cloud incumbents treating agents as loss leaders
Emergent
The core threat is that Microsoft and Google do not need agent builders to be profitable on their own, they need them to make Office, Workspace, Azure, and Cloud stickier. When Copilot Studio is included inside Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Google positions Workspace Studio and Agentspace as seat based extensions to existing productivity suites, the buyer is not comparing a standalone builder to another standalone builder. The buyer is comparing one more bundled line item against adopting a new vendor at all.
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Microsoft explicitly includes internal agent building with Microsoft 365 Copilot at $30 per user per month, with Copilot Studio access at no extra cost for licensed users. That lets Microsoft treat internal agents as a feature that helps expand M365 seats and Azure usage, not as a standalone software margin pool.
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Google is following the same playbook. Workspace Studio is the no code layer for turning a prompt into an agent, while Agentspace and Gemini Enterprise bundle connectors, workflow automation, centralized management, and security into broader Workspace and Cloud budgets. That makes procurement easier than buying a separate agent builder.
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Traditional low code vendors win differently. Retool and Mendix sell into teams that need admins, permissions, data connections, and reviewable deployment paths for real business workflows. Emergent is adding pieces of that stack through custom domains and bring your own database, but incumbents already package governance with the rest of the enterprise software estate.
This market is heading toward a split. Bundled cloud products will absorb simple internal agents, while independent builders have to move up into harder workflows where speed alone is not enough. The durable winners will be the tools that can turn a rough prompt into a governed app that connects to company data, fits approval processes, and can be trusted in production.