Is the SaaSpocalypse nigh? The era of paying for software seats may be ending.
Summary
The article argues that Anthropic's Cowork plugins — lightweight, markdown-based skills and connectors that let agents perform domain tasks — have made the long-theorized shift from SaaS tools to outcome-driven AI agents tangible. Markets reacted sharply as investors repriced legal and other vertical SaaS vendors, interpreting the plugins as a structural threat to seat-based pricing and product moats. The author frames this as Service as Software, where business logic migrates into the AI tier and vendors will need to sell outcomes or deepen irreplicable integrations and data network effects. The piece concludes that incumbents must adapt pricing and product strategy while knowledge workers will be augmented, increasing individual productivity but changing staffing and procurement dynamics.
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