Spring in Shanghai always seems a bit hesitant to arrive.
Right now, it’s 11°C and cloudy outside my window. The clouds over the Bund are as thick as the bloated middle-platform code that big tech giants just can’t seem to lay off. This chilly atmosphere is surprisingly in sync with the current mood in Silicon Valley venture capital circles.
Just last month, that number we thought would go up forever—enterprise software spending—shrank for the first time since 2009. Immediately following that, two trillion dollars in market value vanished into thin air, like a Thanos snap, stripping away the wealth of those SaaS giants who used to make easy money selling “Seats.”
The industry has given it a name that sounds like a B-movie disaster flick: “The SaaSpocalypse.”
The Americano in my hand has gone cold. Let’s put aside those scary red charts for a moment and talk about the real substance behind this. This isn’t just about money; it’s a reshuffling of the definition of “work.”
1. The Budget Didn’t Vanish, It Just Changed Harvesters
Even in 2026, when even the old man selling pancakes downstairs is using AI to calculate flour ratios, many investors still haven’t figured out one thing: Enterprises don’t stop needing software; they stop needing “software for humans to use.”
For the past twenty years, the logic of SaaS was the perfect closed loop: I sell you a shovel (software) and charge by the head. Whether you find gold or not—or even if you don’t dig at all—as long as you hire people, you have to pay rent for my shovels.
It was a genius “tax collection” model.
But now, the guy called the AI Agent has arrived. He doesn’t buy shovels; he is an excavator, and a fully automatic one at that.
I looked at the latest data: enterprise buyers are frantically slashing budgets for those expensive CRMs and ERPs. Why? Because they realized that filling out forms used to require 50 sales reps, each with a $150/month account. Now, just 5 AI Agents can automatically scrape data, generate reports, and even automatically send follow-up emails to clients in the backend.
The budget didn’t disappear into thin air; it just flowed from “tool procurement” to “labor outsourcing”—only this time, the outsourced labor is silicon code.
This architecture diagram is actually a “layoff list.” Look, that massive AI Orchestration Layer in the middle is ruthlessly swallowing up the UI interfaces that used to belong to human clicks.
2. The Lie of the “Seat” and the Death of the Login Button
(Twirling the pen in my hand) Actually, I’ve always felt that “Per-Seat Pricing” is one of the biggest scams in the tech world.
It assumes Software Value = Number of Users. But in reality, for most enterprise software, the more users interact with it, the harder it is to use and the lower the efficiency. The longer you stay in an expense reimbursement system, the more bureaucratic the company is.
The essence of the SaaSpocalypse is the extinction of the “Login Button.”
Previously, software was used to “access.” You needed to log in, click, and type.
Now, software is used to “delegate.”
Imagine not needing to log into that bloated customer service system to assign tickets anymore. You just say to the Agent: “Handle all refund requests unless the amount exceeds $500.” Then you go drink your coffee.
In this scenario, does a “Seat” still have meaning? AI doesn’t need a chair, nor does it need an account; it only needs compute power.
This is why the stock prices of traditional giants still charging “per user/month” have been cut in half. When customers realize the software they bought for millions is actually just serving as an API interface for AI, they ask that soul-searching question: “Why am I paying for a Human-Computer Interface (GUI) if no humans are interacting with it?”
3. Outcome-Oriented: From “Selling Shovels” to “Selling Holes”
This might sound a bit crude, but the logic holds up.
Previous SaaS vendors sold shovels (tool-oriented). Whether you dug up a gold mine or a sewer was none of their business.
Current Agent vendors sell “holes” (outcome-oriented). You pay because you need a two-meter-deep hole right here. You don’t care if I dug it with a shovel, blasted it with dynamite, or sent a hundred cyber-moles to gnaw it out.
This isn’t just a pricing table; it’s a transfer of power. Look at “Outcome-Based” on the right—that is the only direction money will flow in the future.
We see pioneers like Klarna (mentioning them in 2026 feels like referencing an ancient mythical beast, but they were indeed the originators) who proved this long ago. When AI customer service can handle 2/3 of conversations with higher user satisfaction, traditional “customer service seat fees” become a pure tax on stupidity.
Current enterprise software contracts are looking more and more like gambling agreements:
- “Successfully onboard a valid lead: charge $50.”
- “Automatically fix a code bug: charge $10.”
This pricing model is incredibly cruel. It forces software vendors to be responsible for results. If your AI is just confidently speaking nonsense (Hallucination), you don’t get a dime. This makes those SaaS companies that survived on PowerPoint decks and empty promises instantly find themselves “swimming naked.”
4. Ghost Employees and the Panic of the Middle Layer
This leads me to a deduction that sends a slight chill down my spine.
If software is no longer a tool but labor, then who manages the software?
In the past, we had CIOs to manage software procurement and managers to manage the people using the software.
Now, when software itself becomes the executor, the position of middle management becomes extremely awkward. You don’t need to stare at AI to see if it’s slacking off; you only need to check the results.
The corporate structure of the future might become an extremely flat “sandwich”:
- Top: Humans setting strategy (responsible for asking “Why”).
- Bottom: Agent clusters executing tasks (responsible for doing “What”).
- Middle: …Empty.
That bloated middle layer, once filled with “forwarding emails,” “consolidating weekly reports,” and “approval workflows,” might vanish along with the cancellation of SaaS seats.
At this point, if SaaS vendors don’t transform into “Digital Employee Leasing Companies,” their only remaining value might be maintaining those old databases written 20 years ago.
5. Don’t Cry for the Dashboards
Writing this, the clouds outside seem to have scattered a bit.
This SaaSpocalypse looks like a bloodbath, and the evaporation of two trillion dollars makes the champagne on Wall Street taste bitter. But I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.
We’ve been deceived by those pretty dashboards for too long. Those colorful pie charts and bar graphs are essentially masking inefficiency with aesthetic pleasure. We spent too much time “operating” software rather than “completing” work.
If the day comes when we can completely forget the existence of “software,” just as we are unaware of the air when we breathe, that will be technology’s true victory.
Although, that means we might never get to eat the free donuts in the pantries of big SaaS companies again. (Sigh)
Well, at least I can go downstairs and buy one fresh out of the oven.
