(Most) SaaS is Dying

Huge Software Selloff Today as Markets Price in the AI Disruption Risk

The market had a moment of clarity today. Software stocks cratered as investors finally connected the dots on what AI disruption actually means.

What Happened

Private equity funds took a beating. Software companies got hammered. The SPDR S&P Software & Services ETF lost $291 billion in market value by afternoon.

The trigger? Growing recognition that AI isn't just "helping" with software workflows—it's replacing entire categories of them.

Private fund managers felt the pain:

• Ares Management and Blue Owl Capital: down 9%+
• Apollo Global Management and KKR: down 7%+
• Blackstone: down 5%+

Why? These funds have been gorging on software assets for years. When software moats get questioned, their entire thesis gets repriced.

Software companies weren't spared:

• Legal workflow tools got crushed as AI capabilities advance
• Workflow SaaS across categories faced repricing
• Investors updated on displacement risk moving up-stack

The Real Story Behind the Numbers

This wasn't "AI is cool" panic. This was investors updating on a specific threat model:

Workflow displacement is moving up-stack. The selloff hit legal, research, and workflow tools—products whose defensibility is "UI + process + content access." When AI can draft, research, format, and users can route around the UI, value migrates away from the SaaS layer.

Distribution is shifting toward AI as the interface. When your primary interface becomes an agent, SaaS products that were "the place work happens" become back-end utilities. Priced like commodities unless they own proprietary data, deep integrations, or regulated distribution.

The asset-class exposure is real. PE paid "SaaS multiples" for durable subscription cashflows. If the market believes that durability is overstated, you get repricing not just of the apps—but of the managers holding them.

Why I Replace SaaS Tools Every Week

Every week I take a tool I'm sick of paying for and replace it with something custom in-house. I own all my code. I can make any customizations. I can talk to my AI developers any time of day.

There's a reason the market took a tumble today. Most SaaS is dying.

My strategy is simple: de-SaaS your operations. Lower tool spend. Higher control. Faster iteration. Direct access to builders.

This works when:

• Your workflows are differentiating (the tool is the process; the process is the moat)
• Your data is proprietary (and you don't want it trapped in a vendor's schema)
• You need speed + customization (SaaS roadmaps won't match your edge cases)
• You can keep scope tight (replace a job-to-be-done, not "an entire platform")

The Evidence from My Own Work

I always wanted my AI agents to write for me and now they do. This blog writes itself. I'm consistently shipping this approach with measurable results.

In our ROI in under 60 days case study, the agent-driven system saves $10K+ per month and eliminated JotForm licensing plus manual triage burden. We build rapidly on our infrastructure, then transfer a private repo so the client owns everything.

I dogfood this internally too. My own site embeds agents into the customer journey—structured discovery, roadmap generation, automatic document delivery, internal notifications. Software becomes my programmable asset, not a vendor's product.

Our 50% ticket reduction case study shows another pattern: AI agents handling L1 support, escalating complex issues to humans, reducing operational overhead while improving response times. The client owns the system. No vendor lock-in. No per-seat pricing that scales against your success.

As I wrote about last month, we replaced our VOIP phone service in two hours. Today I have ai features for finding contact info ethically, I have dashboards for tracking results of our outbound sales, and I push features on demand in real time thanks for Cursor. I save $350/mo with this one alone. Peake.ai: We Built Our Own AI Phone System in 1 Hour

Where SaaS Still Wins

Let me steelman the counter-case. SaaS isn't dying uniformly. SaaS wins when it has:

• Regulatory/compliance gravity (audits, certifications, liability frameworks)
• Network effects or shared rails (payments, identity, payroll tax filing)
• Deep incumbency + switching costs (ERP cores, long-tail integrations)
• Proprietary distribution (embedded placement, exclusive partnerships)
• Data advantage you can't replicate (rare, but exists in some verticals)

The more accurate line: "Generic workflow SaaS is getting unbundled by agents; infrastructure + regulated rails persist; incumbents survive if they own distribution + data + integration depth."

What to Watch Next

If you want to track this thesis, here are the indicators:

1. Net Revenue Retention deterioration across mid-market workflow categories
2. Seat contraction (same logos, fewer seats) in app-layer tools
3. Pricing model shifts from per-seat to usage/outcome (defensive repositioning)
4. Rising attach rates for "agent layers" that sit above SaaS
5. PE deal terms tightening on software (lower leverage, lower multiples)
6. Vendor messaging drift from "platform" to "copilot/agent" (relabeling precedes margin compression)

The Bottom Line

Today's selloff reflects a credible repricing of software moats driven by AI-native workflow displacement. The contagion into private fund managers is logical—software has been a huge PE target, and disruption risk increases uncertainty on those cashflows.

My "replace tools with owned code" play isn't contrarian. It's aligned with the direction of travel. Control your workflow layer. Keep your data close. Treat software as an internal capability.

Stop trying to trick users into your walled garden. Focus on your user experience, or we will replace you. That goes for your pricing too. Your moat is no longer a strength, it's a target on your bottom line .

For the love of God please don't use Loveable

More on that coming next. It's an AI tool for people who don't know shit about design, or development. A tool for grifters. Another moat obsessed slop factory.

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Ready to de-SaaS your operations? I help companies replace expensive tools with custom AI systems they own. Book a discovery call or check out our case studies to see the results.