“AI agents are going to kill SaaS.” That sounds dramatic. The reality is more interesting. Today, a person might open a CRM, check a lead, update its status, write an email, create a task, and notify the team across several different tools. Some teams are already using AI agents to simplify parts of workflows like these, and that capability is only getting broader. An AI agent could increasingly handle that workflow across those systems for them. That matters because people may need to spend less time manually working inside every software interface. But the software itself doesn’t simply disappear. The agent still needs the CRM data, permissions, APIs, payment systems, integrations, business rules, and infrastructure behind it. And this is where the hype often gets ahead of reality. An agent can misunderstand context. It can work with incorrect data. It may not have the right permissions. An API can fail or change. An integration can break. A business may have an unusual case the agent wasn’t prepared for. And when sensitive customer or financial data is involved, security becomes a much bigger question. So yes, the shift is real. Gartner estimates that up to $234B in enterprise application spending could be exposed to this change by 2030, roughly 20% of enterprise SaaS spending. But Gartner also says current market expectations for AI agents exceed what they can reliably do today. I don’t think the interesting question is whether SaaS “dies.” It’s how the value of software changes. Less value may sit in simply giving people another dashboard to operate. More may sit in the data, workflows, integrations, knowledge, trust, and actual outcomes the product can deliver. The technology is significant. But as usual, the headline is moving faster than the reality.

Agree. Agents don't replace the CRM, they just stop people clicking through it. The data and permissions still live there.