Enterprise collaboration software company Asana is accelerating its shift toward AI agents. On May 29, the company announced it would acquire the no-code AI agent development platform Stack AI for $75 million—its first acquisition in 18 years. Following the announcement alongside its first fiscal quarter earnings, the stock rose more than 13% that day.
The goal of this transaction is not just to add a new product. Asana is trying to reposition itself from a traditional work management software to an enterprise platform that manages collaboration between human employees and AI agents. As generative AI and agent-based AI accelerate into enterprises, the SaaS model based on per-employee licensing is facing increased pressure.
Pressure on the seat-based fee model
In the past, software companies like Asana typically relied on corporate hiring growth to drive revenue, as more employees meant more software licenses purchased. However, AI agents can now handle tasks that previously required multiple people, prompting the market to reassess the growth model of SaaS companies.
Since the AI boom began, Asana's market value has roughly halved. Over the past year, the company's stock price has dropped from a 52-week high of $19 to a low of $5.38. The core market concern is whether businesses will still need traditional work management tools if AI can increasingly perform tasks directly.
Stack AI will enhance agent execution capabilities.
Stack AI’s product is a no-code platform that enables enterprises to deploy AI agents across multiple systems to perform cross-process tasks. For example, agents can seamlessly execute workflows such as new employee onboarding, receiving and quality-checking marketing content, and publishing through a content management system.
Asana’s CEO Dan Rogers said that within the next two to three years, most employees will likely have AI agents assisting them. At that point, the challenge for businesses will no longer just be how people collaborate with each other, but how humans and agents, as well as agents and agents, remain aligned and divide tasks effectively.
He described Asana’s new positioning as “the operating system for human-machine teams.” Under this vision, Asana no longer merely tracks projects but takes on the role of a coordination layer, connecting different departments, systems, and agents within an enterprise.
Earnings exceed expectations and integration advances
On the same day, Asana reported first-quarter revenue of $205.1 million, a 9.5% year-over-year increase that exceeded the upper end of the company’s prior guidance. The company remains in a net loss position, but management stated that AI Studio and AI Teammates, launched over the past year, now account for more than 17% of new annual recurring revenue.
The company also stated that the number of AI Studio customers with annual spending exceeding $100,000 during the quarter nearly doubled. Rogers believes this indicates that enterprise customers are willing to pay for AI features, laying the foundation for Asana’s future integration of Stack AI.
According to the disclosure, Stack AI’s two co-founders, Toni Rosinol and Bernard Aceituno, along with their team of approximately 55 people, will join Asana. Rogers expects the full integration of both products to be completed within two to three months.
However, Asana faces stiff competition, as companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow are also developing similar AI agent orchestration capabilities across systems. Asana’s advantage lies in its product being already embedded in the marketing, IT, operations, and planning workflows of many large enterprises, giving it a solid foundation for horizontal reach. Whether it can successfully transition will depend on the speed of its product execution and enterprise adoption.