Date: August 18, 2026
Imagine an upcoming software renewal. A few years ago, the questions for the IT Asset Management team might have been relatively straightforward: How many licenses did we purchase? How many installations exist? Are we compliant? And how many licenses will we need next year?
Today, the conversation looks very different.
How many SaaS subscriptions are actually being used? Which business units bought applications independently? Are employees assigned licenses they no longer need? Which tools provide overlapping functionality? Who owns the contracts? Why has consumption increased? Which renewals are approaching? And how will emerging AI services with usage-based pricing affect tomorrow’s software budget?
The challenge is not that organizations have forgotten how to manage software. Software itself, and the way organizations consume it, has changed. This shift is driving a new term in IT Asset Management: SaaS and Software Asset Management, or SSAM.
What is SaaS and Software Asset Management?
SaaS and Software Asset Management (SSAM) is the continuous discovery, reconciliation, optimization, and governance of traditional software and SaaS applications across their lifecycle. It connects technical, commercial, and usage information to answer four fundamental questions:
- What do we have?
- What do we use?
- What do we pay for?
- What should we do next?
That final question is particularly important.
Traditional Software Asset Management has often focused heavily on software inventory, licensing and compliance. Those disciplines remain essential and are reflected in established IT Asset Management frameworks such as ISO/IEC 19770-1.
SSAM builds on this foundation. It connects traditional Software Asset Management with SaaS, cloud-connected software, consumption-based services, financial information, and continuous optimization. The objective is no longer simply to establish a reliable license position at a particular point in time. Organizations increasingly need to understand and govern their technology consumption continuously.
In other words: SSAM moves Software Asset Management from static visibility toward continuous control.
The emerging SSAM category reflects a broader shift in the software management market. In The SaaS And Software Asset Management Solutions Landscape, Q3 2026, Forrester brings traditional software and SaaS management together within a shared market perspective focused on continuous discovery, reconciliation, optimization, and governance.
Why is SSAM becoming important now?
Three developments are fundamentally changing the way organizations manage their software estates.
1. Software spending is becoming dynamic
Traditional licensing models based on devices, installations, or fixed entitlements still exist. But they are increasingly accompanied by SaaS subscriptions, usage-based licensing, cloud-connected applications, and AI services. That makes technology spending far more dynamic.
A license may be assigned but never used. A SaaS subscription can remain active long after an employee changes roles or leaves the organization. Two departments may purchase different tools for almost identical business functions. Consumption-based services can generate additional costs without any increase in the number of employees or devices.
At the same time, software purchasing is becoming increasingly decentralized. Business units and individual employees can introduce new SaaS applications without involving central IT, procurement, or Software Asset Management teams.
Organizations therefore need to identify optimization opportunities continuously – rather than waiting for the next audit, budget cycle, or renewal.
2. Software data is scattered across the enterprise
The information required to make a reliable software decision rarely exists in one place.
Inventory systems know what is installed. SaaS platforms know who logged in. Procurement systems hold purchasing data. Contracts describe entitlements and usage rights. Finance knows what was paid. Identity platforms understand access. Security teams assess vulnerabilities and exposure.
When this information remains fragmented, organizations can have enormous amounts of data and still lack reliable answers.
A contract alone cannot show whether the corresponding software is being used. An installation record cannot explain whether the organization is entitled to use the product. A SaaS account does not reveal whether the assigned subscription provides value. A cost record does not automatically identify the responsible owner or business function.
This is why data quality, normalization, and context are fundamental SSAM capabilities. Before organizations can optimize software and SaaS, they first need to trust the data behind the decision.
3. AI introduces a new type of software consumption
For decades, Software Asset Management was predominantly centered around human users and devices. Licensing metrics were commonly tied to installations, processors, devices, named users, or concurrent users.
AI services increasingly introduce a different model:
Consumption may now be measured through tokens, credits, API calls, compute capacity, model usage, or agent activity. The consumer is no longer necessarily a person. Applications, automated workflows, and autonomous AI agents can generate consumption themselves.
This creates new questions about ownership, cost attribution, accountability, and governance:
- Which AI services are being used?
- Which applications and agents are generating consumption?
- Which business unit owns the associated costs?
- How can usage be forecast when consumption changes dynamically?
- Which controls are required to prevent unexpected spending?
- How should organizations evaluate the business value of AI consumption?
Frameworks such as the NIST AI Risk Management Framework also demonstrate the growing importance of continuously governing AI systems throughout their lifecycle. From an asset management perspective, organizations increasingly need visibility not only into where AI is used, but also into how technology consumption and associated costs develop.
Author:
Andreas Gieseke
SVP Technology & Information Managing DirectorShare blog post:
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From SAM to SSAM: What actually changes?
SSAM does not replace Software Asset Management. It builds on it.
Traditional SAM might ask: “What software do we own, where is it installed and are we correctly licensed?”
SSAM extends these questions: “What software and SaaS services are we continuously consuming, what do they cost, who owns them, are they being used efficiently, and where should we take action?”
| Traditional SAM | SSAM |
|---|---|
| Focus on traditional software licenses | Software, SaaS, cloud-connected software, and AI consumption |
| Periodic license position | Continuous visibility and control |
| Installations and entitlements | Usage, access, consumption, contracts, and costs |
| Compliance and audit focus | Compliance, cost, governance, risk, and business value |
| Analysis and reporting | Analysis, recommendations, and operational action |
A mature SSAM approach connects a series of interdependent capabilities:
Discovery creates visibility. Normalization makes fragmented information comparable. Enrichment adds vendor, market, lifecycle, security, and business context. Usage, contract, entitlement, and organizational data create understanding. Optimization identifies unnecessary spending and risk. Governance establishes ownership and accountability. Automation turns insights into repeatable actions.
This is also why SSAM increasingly connects teams that previously worked with separate datasets: ITAM, SAM, procurement, finance, FinOps, IT operations, security, and business stakeholders.
Use case: The renewal meeting with SSAM
Consider that software renewal again.
Without a unified data foundation, an asset manager may need to manually combine purchasing records, spreadsheets, license information, deployment data, account lists, and application usage before negotiations can even begin.
Even after this work, important questions may remain unanswered. Are all assigned subscriptions still required? Are different departments paying for overlapping applications? Does the current subscription tier reflect actual usage? Which contractual conditions influence the organization’s options?
With an SSAM approach, the conversation changes. The organization can identify which software is present, understand licensing and usage information, detect potential redundancies, investigate optimization opportunities, and prioritize action before a contract is renewed.
Instead of asking: How many licenses should we renew? The organization can begin asking: What do we actually need – and why?
That shift from reporting to decision-making is at the heart of SSAM.
Trusted data is the foundation of SSAM
The quality of every SSAM decision depends on the quality of the underlying data.
When product names are inconsistent, inventories are incomplete, contracts cannot be connected to usage, or ownership is unclear, neither compliance calculations nor optimization recommendations can be fully trusted.
The same principle applies to AI. Applying artificial intelligence to incomplete or inconsistent data does not remove uncertainty. It can amplify it.
Organizations therefore need a reliable evidence base that connects software, SaaS, usage, contracts, entitlements, costs, owners, and lifecycle information.
Complete, normalized, and enriched data creates the foundation for confident decisions. It enables organizations to understand not only which technologies are present, but also how they are used, what they cost, which risks they create, and what should happen next.
How Raynet approaches SSAM
Raynet One combines True IT Asset Visibility with integrated SSAM capabilities and AI-assisted analysis.
The platform provides a reliable data foundation for understanding software, SaaS, contracts, entitlements, usage, costs, compliance risks, and optimization opportunities. The same trusted data can also be made available to existing SAM solutions from partners and third-party vendors.
This allows organizations to use Raynet One as an integrated SSAM platform or to strengthen existing Software Asset Management environments with normalized and enriched technology data.
The approach reflects Raynet’s mission, Discover to Manage: organizations must first discover and understand their technology landscape before they can manage costs, optimize usage, reduce risks, and take meaningful action.
SAM AI powered by Raynet One: Scaling expertise without losing control
With SAM AI powered by Raynet One, Raynet and Deloitte take this SSAM approach one step further.
Traditional SAM processes are often manual, dependent on a limited number of licensing specialists, and difficult to scale. Complex contracts include ambiguous language, individual exceptions, custom metrics, and publisher-specific conditions that cannot always be represented through static rules.
Generic AI alone does not solve this problem. Software licensing decisions can have significant financial, contractual, and audit implications. Results must therefore remain explainable, repeatable, and defensible.
SAM AI is not designed to replace licensing experts or generate autonomous compliance decisions. It combines trusted data, embedded licensing expertise from Deloitte, and controlled AI to support contract interpretation, scenario analysis, and contextual recommendations.
The objective is to scale expertise without transferring final judgment away from people.
This approach helps organizations:
- reduce manual contract and licensing analysis;
- apply specialized knowledge more consistently;
- trace results back to relevant contractual information and assumptions;
- extend SAM coverage beyond a small number of high-risk publishers;
- give IT, procurement, and finance easier access to relevant insights; and
- move from reactive compliance reporting toward continuous management.
AI supports the analysis. Trusted data and expert-defined knowledge provide the foundation. People remain in control of the final decision.
What are the benefits of SSAM?
An integrated SSAM approach can help organizations achieve:
- greater transparency across software and SaaS;
- better control of subscriptions and consumption;
- earlier identification of unused licenses and inactive accounts;
- visibility into overlapping or redundant applications;
- improved preparation for renewals and vendor audits;
- stronger compliance and audit defensibility;
- clearer ownership of software costs and risks;
- better sourcing and negotiation decisions;
- closer collaboration between IT, procurement, finance, and security; and
- continuous optimization of the software portfolio.
The greatest value emerges when SSAM does not end with dashboards and reports. Insights must lead to action – from reclaiming unused subscriptions to optimizing contracts, reducing risk, and retiring redundant technology.
Conclusion: SSAM turns visibility into continuous control
Software is increasingly delivered as a service, consumed dynamically, and priced according to usage. As a result, the requirements for Software Asset Management are changing fundamentally.
SSAM connects traditional Software Asset Management with SaaS, cloud-connected software, and emerging consumption models. It brings together technical, commercial, financial, and organizational information to create a shared foundation for compliance, cost control, governance, and action.
The success of SSAM depends on complete and reliable data. Only then can automation and AI produce trustworthy results.
The future of Software Asset Management will not be defined by who collects the most data. It will be defined by who can transform fragmented technology data into trusted information – and trusted information into meaningful action.
Discover first. Build trust in the data. Then manage, optimize, and act.
Frequently asked questions about SAM AI
What does SSAM stand for?
SSAM stands for SaaS and Software Asset Management. It combines traditional Software Asset Management with the continuous management of SaaS applications, cloud-connected software, usage, consumption, access, costs, and governance.
What is the difference between SAM and SSAM?
SAM traditionally focuses on managing software assets, licenses, entitlements, compliance, and optimization. SSAM extends this approach to SaaS and increasingly dynamic consumption models, creating a continuous view across software usage, costs, contracts, access and lifecycle decisions.
Does SSAM replace Software Asset Management
No. SSAM builds on the established disciplines and processes of Software Asset Management. It expands their scope to include SaaS, cloud-connected software, consumption-based services, and wider financial and operational governance.
Is SaaS Management part of SSAM?
Yes. SaaS Management is a central part of SSAM. It includes discovering SaaS applications, analyzing usage, managing access, optimizing subscription costs, preparing renewals, and governing decentralized SaaS adoption.
How does SSAM reduce software and SaaS costs?
SSAM can identify unused licenses, inactive SaaS accounts, oversized subscriptions, overlapping applications, and unfavorable renewals. Organizations can use these insights to reclaim or reallocate licenses, adjust subscription tiers, consolidate tools, and negotiate contracts more effectively.
How does AI affect SSAM?
AI introduces new consumption models beyond conventional seats and devices. Tokens, APIs, credits, compute usage and automated agent activity can make technology consumption more dynamic. At the same time, AI can help SSAM teams analyze complex datasets, identify optimization potential and accelerate decision-making.