What is Make doing strategically?

Make announced a waitlist for next-generation AI Agents in October 2025 and launched them publicly in February 2026. Agents are built directly into the Scenario Builder and ship with a reasoning panel, multimodal input support (documents, images, audio), and Module Tools, which turns any of Make's 3,000-plus connectors into a callable agent tool without requiring a full scenario.

This is not a feature add; it is a product redefinition. Buyers evaluating Make in Q2 2026 are now being sold an AI orchestration platform with visual transparency, not just a workflow connector. That changes the budget conversation from operations spend to AI infrastructure spend, which is a larger and faster-growing line item in most organizations.

The February 2026 GA launch, combined with strong documented demand from the waitlist, confirms this is a real product bet, not a marketing narrative. The risk is that AI modules burn credits faster than standard steps, which can create cost surprises at scale and push teams toward n8n's self-hosted model or Activepieces' unlimited-run pricing.

Make shifted from per-operation billing to a credit system in August 2025. Credits do not map one-to-one with operations for all workflow types. AI module calls, code execution, and high-frequency scenarios consume credits at a higher rate. The Core plan starts at $10.59 per month billed annually, but teams running agentic workflows at any meaningful volume report rapid credit depletion and forced plan upgrades.

For Make, this is an elegant revenue model: as AI adoption drives more complex scenarios, spend per customer rises without a price increase conversation. For buyers and for competitors, it is an opening. Teams that cannot predict their monthly automation bill are the most likely to evaluate alternatives, and 'predictable flat pricing' is a clear wedge to exploit in sales.

The billing model is intentional and defensible at scale, but it introduces churn risk in the $200 to $1,000 monthly spend range where teams are price-sensitive and technically capable enough to self-host or switch. That is exactly the cohort n8n and Activepieces are targeting.

Celonis debuted at number 3 on the Fortune Future 50 list in 2025 and is widely cited as a 2026 IPO candidate at an $11 to $13B valuation. Make's about page confirms it is a Celonis subsidiary. Celonis's enterprise customer base, which includes companies like Siemens, Lufthansa, and Uber, represents a co-sell channel that no independent automation startup can replicate organically.

Make does not need to win the SMB market to become the dominant automation platform. If Celonis closes enterprise deals where Make is the workflow execution layer, Make's effective TAM expands by piggybacking on a sales org that already owns process mining conversations at the C-suite level.

The enterprise channel is real but unevenly activated. Make still feels like an SMB and agency product at the product and support layer. The gap between Celonis's enterprise positioning and Make's current user experience is a structural execution risk that will take 12 to 24 months to resolve. That window is where competitors can hold ground.