Ren
Head of AI, Ex-Product Manager, AI Supply-Chain Bottlenecks
AI has erased engineering complexity as a SaaS moat, so software survives only with compliance or data lock-in. Tyler Technologies, Veeva and Guidewire are anchored in government, pharma and insurance rules, where leaving means a compliance audit; Veeva's revenue rose 16% while its stock fell 25%. Palantir's ontology locks in customer data. Salesforce, Workday, Adobe and ServiceNow are seat-based with neither moat, and BlackLine and nCino, though regulated, never went AI-native. x.comÂ
Vertical, domain-specific SaaS companies that control proprietary data should keep thriving despite Claude's spread, making Salesforce, ServiceNow, Adobe and Palantir a turnaround play. Salesforce's Agentforce has 9.5k+ paid deals at $2 per autonomous action, ServiceNow's Now Assist ACV doubled to $600M+, Adobe has 24B+ Firefly generations with IP indemnity as a massive moat, and Palantir's US commercial revenue rose 137%. x.comÂ
Bloomberg Intelligence sees fragmented enterprise-software markets as runway for large vendors to buy share, enter adjacent areas and strengthen AI, data and platforms. Serious software M&A is expected: Guidewire's $1.7B purchase of hyperexponential adds another deal after Salesforce's acquisition of Braze, which opened the gates. x.com x.comÂ
Salesforce's poor M&A is literally half the reason its multiple stays low. Slack and Informatica are cited as examples, with Braze raised as a question; AI making Tableau obsolete in a few years would be a separate risk, not itself poor M&A. x.comÂ
Enterprise demand for sovereign AI favors Palantir's transformation model. In a two-pronged AI economy, businesses can retain their IP and use low-cost open models while frontier labs compete for the last increment of intelligence. x.comÂ
SaaS is alive: AI is not replacing entrenched enterprise platforms such as Palantir, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Shopify, Datadog, Salesforce, Snowflake, AppLovin, MongoDB and Zeta. Switching costs and risks are too high, and no credible CTO will swap ServiceNow for a stitched-together AI replacement. Using AI themselves should expand margins by cutting headcount bloat and lifting revenue through AI features. ServiceNow has 600+ customers with ACV over $5M, up 22%, and rose 23% in a week. x.comÂ
Palantir's reliance on pay-as-you-go service with refunds makes customer cancellations and sudden earnings declines or write-downs a serious risk as AI and high SaaS prices pressure the business. Its 10-Q warns of these risks. Anthropic can and will easily replace Palantir with an all-in-one platform under Democratic control of the legislative branches. x.com x.comÂ
Software's relative strength and sound finances make institutional rotation from semis plausible. It could lead while semis consolidate, despite slow growth at some firms; the market rewards cash flow, healthy balance sheets and manageable debt. Salesforce, ServiceNow, Palantir, Shopify and Workday hold up; SAP's cloud and AI shift, Instacart's massive 10-month base, Veeva's massive five-year base and Atlassian's Stage 2 strength add to the case. Semis may still rally; the view can change. x.com … Show more
Software stocks probably have a floor as results challenge fears that AI agents will displace them. Since the June 22 momentum unwind, IGV is up 25% and the SOX index down 22%. Atlassian and Salesforce jumped on solid results, plus an Anthropic deal for Salesforce, and possible Silver Lake interest lifted Workday. A new bullish twist says agents will use software tools 10-100x more than humans. Whether fundamentals back the rally is still open; a likely Fed hike and weak September are risks. … Show more
Adobe, Salesforce and ServiceNow still generate massive cash flow, push deeper into AI and sit at the center of enterprise operations. Three of the biggest SaaS names remain beaten up in 2026; their valuations have been crushed, but the long-term opportunity may not have been. The market has swung way too far against them. x.comÂ
These 12 stocks offer exposure to AI, automation, health care, consumer growth and nuclear demand. AMD makes AI chips; Oracle builds AI cloud; Vertex has multiple drug opportunities. Arista supplies data-center switches, KLA inspection tools and Cadence chip-design tools. Palantir sells AI platforms; Symbotic automates warehouses; Alphabet spans search, cloud and AI. Celsius has US consumer momentum, AppLovin runs high-margin mobile ads, and Cameco mines uranium and co-owns Westinghouse. x.com … Show more
