Oracle wants to bill you for every AI task, not just every seat

Big Red says AI units will add to subscriptions, as it juggles $90BN-plus capex, mounting debt and a $225BN revenue goal for 2030

Oracle expects to earn more from existing application customers as it embeds AI in its enterprise software suite.

Speaking at Big Red's investor day on Wednesday, Chris Leone, executive veep of application development, said Oracle will layer usage-based revenue on top of its subscription model. 

“The more work that gets done by AI in our system, the more revenue we will see because they're consuming AI units as that work is getting done. We don't have to add more seats in order for us to now generate more revenue,” he said.

REG AD

Earlier this month, Oracle revealed its Fusion Claw runtime, designed to help customers control AI agents that automate business processes. It targets ERP, finance, and supply chain management in cloud-based Fusion applications running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

REG AD

Customers will pay for more work done inside Oracle applications, and Leone said Fusion Claw will also automate work done outside of Fusion.

The promise of more revenue for Oracle, and higher bills for customers, came as the company sought to reassure investors about its spending, borrowing and revenue as it chases a share of the AI market.

Oracle is funding a datacenter spending spree with negative cashflow and borrowing. OCI is set to host large language model builders, notably OpenAI,  alongside its own customers' workloads. Oracle spent $55.7 billion on datacenters and cloud infrastructure in fiscal year 2026, which ended in May, and plans to spend between $90 billion and $95 billion in fiscal 2027.

That will require more debt. In 2027, Oracle hopes to raise around $40 billion in debt and equity, on top of the $18 billion in debt it raised in September 2025.

In a notice to investors this week, Oracle said it expects fiscal 2030 revenue of $225 billion, a compound annual growth rate of 35 percent from 2026. It expects positive cash flow by the second half of fiscal 2028, with capital spending falling the following financial year. Investors reacted positively.

Oracle co-CEO Mike Sicilia also told shareholders the company will use AI to help implement its software, a plan he called as important as putting AI in the software itself. He argued AI will cut implementation time, bringing existing and new customers to OCI faster and boosting revenue.

"On-premises customers can now move far more easily to the cloud by leveraging the AI tool sets to automate migrations and decrease the cost and time to implement. They don't have to be Oracle customers; they can be competitive customers."

Sicilia said enterprise application software users' reluctance to change had been a major "headwind" for Oracle, one he hopes AI will ease.

REG AD

"Our large remaining base of on-premises customers are going to start to adopt this technology quite quickly. When we move customers from on-premises to cloud, we see a multiple increase in revenue," he said. ®