The term Non-Linear¹ describes the shift from a linear (direct, proportional) revenue model - such as billable hours in professional services - to a non-linear model, such as recurring subscription revenues from Web or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps.

In the context of this post, Going Non-Linear captures the idea of breaking the direct linear link between time spent and revenue earned, enabling scalable, exponential, or otherwise non-proportional growth.

A compelling need.

Why and where is this important?

The answer is every knowledge-intensive services business - accounting, advisory. creative, legal and so forth - in fact, any business that operates on a billable people hours model - is now starting to experience the beginning of what will be an ever-growing decline in revenues.

Perhaps the most surprising of all is healthcare - even in the UK public sector and the NHS - where citizens are customers who primarily interact with healthcare professionals, scheduled by the inherent limits of available working hours and expert resources in a day.

Of course, private healthcare, like any other knowledge-intensive services business exists on optimising billable people hours. A publicly-funded healthcare system like the UK NHS, although not built on a hourly rate charging model is still, nevertheless, bound by timely measures of services delivered, albeit not paid by the citizen, but by government department.

A major industry survey found that 67% of corporate legal departments and 55% of law firms expect AI-driven efficiencies to impact the prevalence of the billable hour, with 20% foreseeing a significant impact. The report notes, “It is inevitable that GenAI will reshape firms’ business models in fundamental ways,” including a shift from hourly billing to flat fees, subscriptions, or value-based billing. Wolters Kluwer. (2024, October 24)².

Research has also documented the trend: “AI and automation are transforming professional services, reducing the need for billable hours by automating routine and repetitive tasks, and prompting a shift toward alternative pricing models.” Susskind, R. E., & Susskind, D. (2015)³.

For healthcare, whilst AI is going to be treated as a regulated medical device in relationship to care itself, simply using an AI-powered Vibe Coding tool is not going to present a real risk, as long as decision-makers within inherently conservative organisations, such as the UK NHS, get to see that AI in this context is simply an accelerator in the build process of a Web app.

Brainware-to-software.

The answer to the declining billable people hours is an opportunity to move beyond this linear model to a non-linear business model over time, but to initiative this now, before the decline becomes a significant problem. This means engaging in a process of converting the firm's brainware to software.

Of course, this requires a clear understanding of how the firm's distinct human expertise can be converted into one or more Web or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps that can generate recurring revenues from subscription fees. It starts with Mutual Value Discovery process.

Mutual Value Discovery, applied.

As the name implies, a Mutual Value Discovery determines the value a new product or service can generate for both buyer and seller. In selecting the right brainware-to-software conversion this means recognising the power of platforms, long enjoyed by technology leaders, such as Apple. It's also countering the comfort of business-as-usual. Mehr, A. & McMahon, T. (2024)⁴.

With a sense of curiosity, from the prospective buyer's perspective, the Mutual Value Discovery process here is to compare the economic and other advantages of a future state Web or SaaS app that replaces current state hourly rate services^6,7. Here's some examples:

Accounting and Bookkeeping
Accountants have moved from hourly billing for bookkeeping and tax prep to offering cloud-based accounting software and monthly subscription fees for ongoing financial management.

Consulting and Advisory
Management consultants and business coaches can deliver value through online courses, knowledge bases, or SaaS apps that automate diagnostics, reporting, or strategic planning, charging clients a recurring fee.

Creative Agencies
Traditionally, agencies bill clients by the hour for design work, branding, and campaign creation. Now, platforms and subscription-based design services allow clients to access design tools or request unlimited design tasks for a monthly fee, decoupling revenue from direct labour hours.

Event Planning
Event planners can offer Web-based platforms for event registration, ticketing, and management, charging organisers a monthly or per-event subscription rather than billing for planning hours.

Legal Services
Instead of charging by the hour for document review or contract drafting, law firms can offer automated document generation, legal chatbots, or subscription-based access to legal templates and advice through Web or SaaS apps.

Marketing Communications
Instead of billing for campaign management hours, agencies can provide clients with access to marketing automation platforms, analytics dashboards, or content scheduling tools on a subscription basis.

Making it happen.

The process of calculating the value of a future state move to Web or SaaS apps and related subscription fees is all about applying Design Thinking¹⁴ and Value Engineering⁵ in quantifying the measurable diffference of future state versus current state. The key question here is: what's the cost of no change to business-as-usual?

Knowledge-intensive creative and professional services firms, such as law, consulting, accounting, and design, are often conservative and resistant to change. This conservatism is rooted in their reliance on established expertise, reputation, and traditional business models (such as billable hours).

Services firms may perceive new technologies, especially AI, as threats to their professional identity, client relationships, and established workflows. As a result, they may adopt innovations more slowly than other sectors, often requiring strong evidence of both the risks of inaction (such as competitive disadvantage) and the advantages of adoption.

A systematic review in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence found that adoption of AI in professional settings is complex and often met with concern, especially in knowledge-intensive environments. Employees and firms may fear job loss, instability, and the erosion of traditional professional roles, leading to resistance. This emphasises the need for organisations to implement supportive strategies that address these fears and highlight the benefits of AI, such as increased autonomy, creativity, and innovation (Soulami et al., 2024)⁸.

Another study in Discover Artificial Intelligence highlights that 70–85% of AI initiatives in business fail and often due to human-related barriers, including resistance to change, lack of trust, and insufficient alignment with organisational culture. The authors argue that successful AI adoption requires a human-centric approach, with leadership actively addressing both the threats and opportunities presented by AI ([Fenwick et al., 2024)⁹.

In the journey from brainware-to-software at Being Guided we are embracing several new AI technologies that significantly reduce the time and cost in creating monetisable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. This is where Vibe Coding¹⁰ comes into play.

Vibe Coding is a term first used by industry analyst Andrej Karparthy¹⁰ to describe how you can generate software code by using AI to describe apps using natural language prompts, where the term 'vibe' comes from "fully giving into the vibes, and forget that the code even exists".

In creating a brainware-to-software innovation, I see Vibe Coding as a set of new but reliable technologies that accelerate the design and development of SaaS apps built on the Salesforce Lightning Platform¹¹.

Here I use the visual No-Code First approach to tailoring SaaS apps on Salesforce, where the Lightning Framework creates apps fast at lower cost with clicks, not code.

The good news in the Salesforce environment is that the Large Language Model-powered DeepAgent tools from Abacus.ai¹² make a No-Code First approach to building apps go even faster and in a safe way. This ensures that there is always a human-in-the-loop before going live with AI-generated code.

No-Code First is a strategy where software solutions are initially built using no-code or low-code platforms, enabling rapid prototyping and empowering non-developers (often called 'citizen developers') to create functional applications.

This approach of No-Code First is especially powerful when combined with Vibe Coding, where users describe their intent in natural language, and AI generates the codeor configuration needed to realise that intent (Masood, 2025)¹³.

As a Vibe Coder, Abacus.ai DeepAgent provides:

Conversational Code Generation. Users describe what they want in plain English, and DeepAgent generates Salesforce code (Apex, LWC, Flows) or configuration steps.

Real-Time Collaboration. Multiple users can interact with DeepAgent, review code, and iterate on solutions together.

Context Awareness. DeepAgent understands Salesforce metadata (Objects, Fields, Relationships) and tailors its responses to your Salesforce Org Data Schema.

References

1. Oxford University Press. (2025). Non-linearity. In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/non-linear
2. Wolters Kluwer. (2024, October 24). Redefining legal business – the end of the billable hour? Wolters Kluwer Expert Insights*
   https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/ai-impact-on-legal-business-models
3. Susskind, R. E., & Susskind, D. (2015). The future of the professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts. Oxford University Press
   https://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/2018 -11/attachments/Susskind%20and%20Susskind.pdf
4. Mehr, A. & McMahon, T. (2024). The conqueror's code. From Alexander the Great to Agentic AI. Amazon.
   https://www.amazon.com/Conquerors-Code-Alexander-Breakthrough-Technology/dp/B0FG15Y5DJ
5. Miles, L.D. (1947). The Lawrence D. Miles Value Engineering Reference Center Collection.
   https://minds.wiscon.edu/handle/1793/301
6. Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. W. W. Norton & Company.
   https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-07087-000
7. Susskind, R. (2019). *Tomorrow’s lawyers: An introduction to your future* (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
   https://www.susskind.com/
8. Fenwick, A., Molnar, G., & Frangos, P. (2024). The critical role of HRM in AI-driven digital transformation: A paradigm shift to enable firms to move from AI implementation to human-centric adoption. Discover Artificial Intelligence, 4(34).
   https://doi.org/10.1007/s44163-024-00125-4
9. Soulami, M., Benchekroun, S., & Galiulina, A. (2024). Exploring how AI adoption in the workplace affects employees: A bibliometric and systematic review. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 7, Article 1473872.
   https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2024.1473872
10. Karpathy, A. [@karpathy]. (2025, February 2). There’s a new kind of coding I call “vibe coding”, where you fully give in to vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that code even exists. X. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1753472166197080428
11. Stutz, A., & Kolb, R. (2021). *Salesforce Lightning Platform Enterprise Architecture* (3rd ed.). Packt Publishing.
    [https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Salesforce-Lightning-Platform-Enterprise-Architecture-Third-Edition](https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Salesforce-Lightning-Platform-Enterprise-Architecture-Third-Edition)
12. Abacus.ai. (2025). Abacus AI platform overview.
    https://abacus.ai/platform
13. Masood, A. (2025, April 19). Coding by Vibes: Can AI Really Write 80% of Tomorrow’s Software?Medium.
    https://medium.com/@adnanmasood/coding-by-vibes-can-ai-really-write-80-of-tomorrows-software-3562425cff51
14. The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. (2004) Stanford d.school. https://dschool.stanford.edu/about