The Future of SaaS: Autonomous Platforms That Evolve

Most AI startups start with SaaS because it's easy. You can make products using tech that's off the shelf and quickly sell to customers. But in the enterprise, this is a HUGE mistake. What I find is that a lot of enterprises don't like SaaS, especially if it involves an AI system that's accessing very sensitive information. What's unique about MemVerge is that instead of SaaS, everything we do is customer installed software. The reason we made that decision consciously is that we sell to large enterprise clients, and when you sell into large enterprises, SaaS is actually a barrier to entry. Enterprises don't want SaaS, because you're dealing with sensitive information that needs to stay in-house. There's this catch-22 -- the more quality information your AI system can access, the more useful it is. But most of the time when you start to have a real production use case that's high value, you're dealing with sensitive information: - Proprietary source code - Customer information - Health records What we're doing is letting users run everything locally - whether it's in their own virtual private cloud in AWS, on their own servers, on prem, or in a data center that they control. The problem with SaaS models is that the utility only goes so far. When you get to breakthrough production use cases, that's exactly when you're dealing with the information enterprises absolutely will not put in someone else's system. In today's age of AI especially, it's a really important lesson.

Agentic SaaS Series: Post 1/10 🚀 From Copilots to Colleagues — The Next Leap for SaaS Leaders 👋 Every week, I sit down with SaaS leaders — product managers, architects, and engineers — to talk about where GenAI is heading. What I’m seeing makes me believe Agentic AI may be the biggest shift in how humans interact with software since the smartphone. Some software companies are just experimenting. Some are building copilots. A few are already testing early agent-driven workflows. As I learn from these conversations, I want to share back what I’m seeing — not as “final answers,” but as practical observations and questions that might help others think through their own journey. 🚫 Copilots are not the end game: Right now, most SaaS companies are focused on AI copilots — tools that sit next to the user, take instructions, and make tasks faster. They’re helpful. But they’re not the destination. The next big shift is toward agentic AI colleagues — systems that can own workflows end-to-end, acting less like assistants and more like trusted teammates. 👉 A copilot says: “Draft an email for me.” 👉 A colleague says: “Handle all customer follow-ups until it’s resolved. Escalate only if needed.” ⚡ Why this matters for software companies? For software companies, agentic AI is more than efficiency. It makes the UI fade into the background — the agent becomes the interface. Software stops being just a tool people use, and starts becoming a colleague they rely on. This shift is not incremental. It re-architects workflows and changes how users interact with your product: 🌀 From clicks → commitments 🌀 From drivers → supervisors 🌀 From features → workflows 🔑 Colleagues are the near-term transformation. The long-term endgame is even bigger: autonomous agents that don’t just follow workflows, but deliver outcomes with minimal human input. ✅ Summary The winners in the agentic era won’t be the ones with the fanciest AI features. They’ll be the ones who design products where the human is no longer the bottleneck — where agents take real responsibility, first as colleagues, and eventually as fully autonomous partners. 📌 What’s next in this series: This is the kickoff to a 10-part series on Agentic AI for SaaS Leaders. Over the next posts, I’ll mix: 🔮 Vision — where software is headed (Copilots → Colleagues → Autonomous). 🛠 Execution — frameworks for categorizing, prioritizing, and designing workflows. 💰 Business — new monetization models for agentic SaaS. Next up: How SaaS leaders can categorize and prioritize workflows for agentic AI. 💬 Over to you — is your company building copilots, colleagues, or already thinking autonomous? #AgenticAI #GenAI #SaaS #ProductLeadership #AIProductStrategy

AI erodes the SaaS moat, and the next defensible frontier is AI-enabled, outcome-driven services. Spinning up a SaaS product is no longer a challenge. Solo founders bootstrapping to $1M ARR prove the software development moat has collapsed. With AI copilots and prefab backends, you can build a working MVP in weeks. What used to be a moat is now just table stakes. The consequence? SaaS is collapsing into commodity. Everyone can build, so building isn’t where the value lies anymore. The more good software floods the market, the harder it becomes to sell. Quality alone won’t differentiate anymore - and those SaaS growth numbers will inevitably start to fall. I'm wondering, does this mean we're facing a big shift in where value actually lies? Distribution → who owns the customer relationship. Expertise → who actually understands the client’s workflow. Delivery → who can promise results, not tools. That’s why I believe we’re entering a phase where services will eat SaaS. Companies don’t want another dashboard; they want the job done. “Do it yourself” software looks impressive at first, but fragile when every competitor offers the same features. Now, a turnkey solution: AI + process + people, embeds deeper and sticks longer. It may not sound as glamorous as chasing the next unicorn app, but I believe it’s a more rational way to build durable businesses in the AI era. Not around the technology, but specific client's needs.

Agentic AI isn’t the end of SaaS. It’s the beginning of something better. There’s a lot of conversation lately about how generative and agentic AI might replace traditional SaaS. Bain & Company sums up the various talking points very succinctly in this article. At first glance, this assertion makes sense. Why log into software when AI can just handle the task? But in my experience, in both leading a SaaS company and listening to customers across medtech, high tech, and manufacturing, the reality is more nuanced. The question isn’t “Will AI replace SaaS?” It’s “How will SaaS evolve to fully embrace AI?” Here’s what I believe: Data is the lever. The most valuable SaaS platforms won’t be the ones with the most features. They’ll be the ones with the deepest, cleanest, and most actionable data. Integration is the differentiator. AI is only as useful as the systems it can pull from and act within. SaaS companies that open up and orchestrate intelligently will win. Value must be visible. As AI automates more tasks, SaaS must prove its worth not in screen time, but in business outcomes: better decisions, faster responses, stronger compliance. The Bain piece gets it right: "Winners will be the organizations that scale agent orchestration best. Most companies must pick a lane: Either become the neutral agent platform or supply the unique data that powers it. Only a few giants (Salesforce, for example) can realistically do both." Thanks to our foundation on Salesforce, Propel Software is among these few. We’re not trying to outrun agentic AI. We’re working to embed it in ways that make every product decision smarter, faster, and more resilient. AI isn’t replacing SaaS. It’s redefining its value. Get a demo of our agentic AI solution, Propel One: https://lnkd.in/ggArK2XN A great read here: https://lnkd.in/gjs5QTtS

Unpopular opinion: 70% of current SaaS companies will be dead by 2030. I just watched a $50M SaaS company get blindsided. Their biggest client replaced them with a 6-month-old AI startup. The reason? The AI tool did in 30 seconds what their dashboard took 30 minutes. Here's the data that should scare every SaaS founder: 30% of SaaS companies STILL have zero AI. Meanwhile: → AI companies are 43% more likely to be profitable → 87% see improved growth rates with AI → AI startups got 60% more funding (SaaS funding declined) The brutal math: 2024: <1% of enterprise software had AI August 2025: ~70% of SaaS companies have AI 2028: 33% will have ADVANCED AI (Gartner) We've already hit the inflection point. Companies like Klarna already ditched Salesforce entirely. Replaced entire workflows with AI agents. The 3 stages of SaaS in 2025: Stage 1: "We have basic AI" ← 30% are stuck here Stage 2: "We're AI-first" ← The smart money Stage 3: "AI runs our business" ← The winners Without AI by 2027? You'll operate at a 40-60% efficiency disadvantage. That's not competition. That's extinction. The survival playbook: 1. Stop AI-washing → Rebuild workflows around AI 2. Own your data → It's your only moat left 3. Switch to outcome pricing → Seat-based is dead The window is closing. We've moved from "Will AI disrupt SaaS?" to "How fast can you become AI-native?" Every day you stay in Stage 1, an AI-first competitor gets stronger. What stage are you in right now? (And "we have a chatbot" = Stage 1)

AI is outpacing SaaS in revenue growth—and it’s redefining the future of tech. What does this shift mean for businesses, platforms, and customer expectations? Explore the implications in Salesforce's latest blog. 📖 Read here: https://ow.ly/85vs50WwJcK #AI #SaaS #TechTrends #DigitalTransformation #Salesforce #FutureOfWork #AIRevolution #SalesforceBen

🚀 SaaS is dead. Long live Agentic SaaS. We're witnessing the most significant shift in business software since the cloud revolution. Traditional SaaS tools that wait for human commands are being replaced by autonomous agents that independently pursue business objectives. What's changing: → Organizations are shifting from fixed to variable costs, replacing permanent staff with scalable AI solutions → Pricing models are evolving from simple per-user subscriptions to outcome-based agreements → Companies are developing flatter hierarchies as AI handles operational tasks → Teams are focusing on strategy while agents execute routine work The real game-changer? We're moving toward multi-agent ecosystems where specialized AI agents collaborate, negotiate resources, and solve complex problems without human intervention. But here's the challenge: This isn't just about technology - it's about fundamental organizational transformation. Companies that resist this evolution may find themselves at a growing disadvantage as competitors leverage autonomous capabilities to reduce costs and accelerate operations. The question isn't whether this shift will happen, but how quickly your organization will adapt to capitalize on it. Are you ready for the agentic future? What's your take on AI agents taking over routine business operations? #AgenticAI #SaaS #DigitalTransformation #ArtificialIntelligence #BusinessStrategy #FutureOfWork #Innovation Read the full analysis: https://lnkd.in/gDVBZD4P

Heard of Service as a Software? How about Service as a Service...? A longish, but very interesting article from Forbes - SaaS is Dead. Long live SaaS. ✴️ ✴️ Some great & memorable one-liners too...(ok...some 1.5 liners also!). Loved this one particularly - "The future tends to look a lot like the past. Only this time, there’s a promise of greater margins." 🔔 💡 Sample these: 🎯 1. YC’s latest cohort reads like a menu of painkiller micro-SaaS 2. The product remains the credential. But what earns the seat at the table is the service logic beneath it. 3. The product opens the door, but the outcome is what keeps it open. 4. The future tends to look a lot like the past. Only this time, there’s a promise of greater margins. 5. “People talk about product-market fit, but what really matters now is output-context fit." 6. "If you deliver clarity at speed, that’s what wins, not the wrapper it comes in." #ai #genai #aiAgents https://lnkd.in/g4mu2R8e

Vertical AI: Poised to Eclipse SaaS? Get Ready for a Market Revolution. The tech world is buzzing, and for good reason. We're on the cusp of a monumental shift, with vertical AI agents poised to dwarf even the massive SaaS market. Forget incremental improvements; we're talking about complete transformation of entire business functions. Insight 1: The SaaS Analogy – and Why it Falls Short The success of SaaS offers a compelling parallel. Over 20 years, SaaS companies received over 40% of all venture capital, spawning hundreds of unicorns. However, vertical AI agents promise to be even bigger. Why? Because they go beyond simply replacing software; they automate tasks, significantly reducing payroll costs, a far larger expense for most companies than software licenses. Companies spend vastly more on employees than on software, representing an enormous opportunity for cost optimization. Insight 2: Learning from the SaaS Boom – and Avoiding Past Mistakes The rise of SaaS was fueled by innovations like XML HTTP requests, enabling rich internet applications. This created opportunities for both obvious and unexpected consumer products. While incumbents dominated obvious areas like email and docs, startups thrived by innovating in unexpected spaces—think Uber and Airbnb. Vertical AI offers a similar dual opportunity. Insight 3: The B2B Focus – A Key Differentiator The B2B SaaS market exploded because there was no single dominant player. The inherent need for specialized solutions across various industries fostered a vast ecosystem of smaller, successful companies. Vertical AI mirrors this, with massive potential for highly specialized AI agents tailored to unique industry needs. This fragmentation promises a huge opportunity for those who can effectively target vertical markets. The implications for marketing professionals are significant. Understanding the emerging opportunities within vertical AI agents is critical for staying ahead of the curve. This is no longer a futuristic concept, but a rapidly developing reality shaping the business landscape. Companies that can quickly identify and capture the vertical markets best suited to AI automation will enjoy a significant competitive edge. Consider these questions: What specific vertical markets are ripe for disruption? How can you leverage AI to improve efficiency and reduce costs within your organization? Let's discuss how to prepare your marketing strategies for the Vertical AI revolution! Share your thoughts in the comments below.

 The Next Wave Isn’t Just AI Features — It’s Agentic Platform Companies (APCs) Adaptive, AI-powered ecosystems are redefining enterprise software.  Mid-tier SaaS is feeling the squeeze: ⚡ AI-native startups are faster and leaner ⚡ Tech giants are bundling AI at scale 📉 High-growth SaaS dropped from 57% to 39% in just one year 📉 Retention is down. Valuations are slipping. 💡 The path forward? A bold pivot to intelligent, connected platforms — or risk being left behind. 🔗 Very interesting article that dives into this shift #Bye SaaS #AI #EnterpriseSoftware #BusinessStrategy