Premium: The Hater's Guide To The SaaSpocalypse

The so-called 'AI SaaSpocalypse' — the narrative that generative AI is destroying SaaS companies — is a convenient cover story for a much deeper structural crisis. SaaS growth has been slowing since 2018, driven by overvalued PE buyouts, debt-fueled acquisitions, and the false assumption that software companies would grow forever. Venture capital and private equity piled into SaaS at peak valuations, creating tens of billions in zombie companies they can't exit. Meanwhile, major SaaS players like IBM, Adobe, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Workday are either hiding or barely generating meaningful AI revenues — suggesting AI is not the disruptor it's claimed to be. The real culprit is hubris: an entire industry built on the belief that recurring revenue and perpetual growth were synonymous, now colliding with gravity.