In the early 2000s, Salesforce revolutionized the software industry with the launch of its cloud-based CRM solution. Businesses started to swift from expensive on-premise installations of software programs to cloud-based systems with subscription models, later catalogued as Software as a Service (SaaS) companies. However, the market is in a completely different situation: Now we see that yesterday’s disruptors are being categorized as today´s incumbents.
This market sentiment is demonstrated by the stock price of leading companies such as HubSpot, which is -28,32% YTD (Yahoo!Finance, 2025), Salesforce, which is -26,32% YTD (Yahoo!Finance, 2025), and Adobe, which is -21,35% YTD (Yahoo!Finance, 2025). This general stock downfall is partially driven by the statements of executives at, coincidentally, other technological companies. Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s corporate vice president leading business applications and platforms, believes that SaaS companies will be replaced by AI business agents, which understand and adapt better to businesses’ needs without predefined systems and menus (Taft, 2025). Klarna’s CEO recently announced they got rid of over 1,200 software tools and built their own AI-powered system instead, making use of LLMs to reduce the data fragmentation (Klarna, 2025).
To respond to the current disruption generated by AI, SaaS companies are trying to fight back. In 2023, Salesforce announced the release of Einstein GPT, a generative AI for its CRM platform (Salesforce, 2023). In 2024, SalesForce unveiled AgentForce, a suite of autonomous AI agents (Salesforce, 2024). In the case of Adobe, they tried to acquire Figma in 2023, even though the deal was abandoned due to fears of anti-trust regulations (Peters, 2023). Earlier this year, they launched Adobe Marketing Agent and Adobe Express Agent to dive into the AI agent sector (Adobe, 2025).
From your point of view, do you think that Software as a Service (SaaS) companies are going to be displaced by AI agents? Or is it just that SaaS companies have experienced excessive investor speculation, similar to the dot-com bubble? Are we reaching the consolidation phase?
References
Adobe. (2025, March 18). Adobe and Microsoft Empower Marketers with AI Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Adobe Newsroom. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://news.adobe.com/news/2025/03/adobe-and-microsoft-empower-marketers-with-ai-agents-in-microsoft-365-copilot
Klarna. (2025, June 12). Klarna opens direct line to CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski – powered by AI. Klarna. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna-opens-direct-line-to-ceo-sebastian-siemiatkowski-powered-by-ai/
Peters, J. (2023, December 20). Adobe explains why it abandoned the Figma deal. The Verge. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/20/24008189/adobe-figma-deal-eu-explained-decoder
Salesforce. (2023, March 7). Salesforce Announces Einstein GPT, the World’s First Generative AI for CRM. Salesforce. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2023/03/07/einstein-generative-ai/
Salesforce. (2024, September 12). Salesforce Unveils Agentforce–What AI Was Meant to Be. Salesforce. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2024/09/12/agentforce-announcement/
Taft, D. K. (2025, August 16). Microsoft: AI ‘Business Agents’ Will Kill SaaS by 2030. The New Stack. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://thenewstack.io/microsoft-ai-business-agents-will-kill-saas-by-2030/
Yahoo!Finance. (2025, August 12). HubSpot, Inc. (HUBS) Stock Price, News, Quote & History. Yahoo Finance. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/HUBS/
Yahoo!Finance. (2025, September 11). Adobe Inc. (ADBE) Stock Price, News, Quote & History. Yahoo Finance. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ADBE/
Yahoo!Finance. (2025, September 11). Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) Stock Price, News, Quote & History. Yahoo Finance. Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CRM/
