Ted Zhang
Portfolio Manager of Turbotection at Revere Asset Management
Software looks like a group that can lead the market higher, with many names from Palantir and ServiceNow to Zeta and MongoDB moving from late Stage 4 or Stage 1 into early Stage 2 uptrends. Sentiment is at an all-time low on fears that AI agents and chatbots will replace SaaS. AI will disrupt some areas, but many software businesses are using it to grow revenue, ship faster and expand operating leverage, and will thrive. The charts will separate survivors from the dead. x.com x.comÂ
Software stocks may benefit from the AI displacement trade's complete reversal through 2026: instead of AI supposedly displacing traditional software companies, software companies could potentially displace the AI trade itself. x.comÂ
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
Software companies face a multi-year repricing because AI has removed the scarcity that made software valuable. For 20 years building software required engineers, letting SaaS firms charge monthly fees forever; when anyone can build a working product in a weekend with Claude, software stops being the moat. Atlassian is down 75%, HubSpot 69% and Figma 86%, and layoffs show headcount no longer scales with output. Survivors will be those with distribution, data and trust underneath. x.comÂ
Adobe, Salesforce and ServiceNow, the supposed AI losers, offer the best long-term value in this market, per JPMorgan. The fear is that AI tools destroy incumbent software economics, but multiples already price a catastrophic scenario, whether or not the collapse happens. This is the setup in which dead stocks became the best performers of the next cycle. x.comÂ
AI agents could drive high demand for software, so these names should not be overlooked. The targets: ServiceNow $200, Microsoft $650, Salesforce $275, AppLovin $1,000 and Autodesk $350. x.comÂ
Horizontal SaaS tools such as HubSpot, Atlassian and Intuit will be disrupted as companies build their own replacements with AI. Per @CJ0pp3l, quoting one of Constellation Software's AI leads, HubSpot, Jira, Mailchimp and Zendesk have been replaced with AI-built systems and agents, and only vertical software with strong systems of record and deep workflow integration will grow with AI. The market also sold vertical names like Constellation and Topicus, which hold deep platform data. x.comÂ
These software names get stronger as AI grows, despite the early-2026 "AI will kill SaaS" sell-off. ServiceNow is becoming the control room that manages companies' AI agents. Salesforce's Agentforce brings in $1.2B a year and is tripling; Atlassian clients using Rovo spend twice as much; Adobe's business-safe Firefly earns $250M; Workday's agents bring nearly $500M. SAP and Snowflake hold the data AI needs, and Datadog monitors the extra systems AI creates, with the AI wave still early. x.com … Show more
Software stocks such as UiPath, HubSpot and ServiceNow are not about to be wiped out by AI, and a reported Silver Lake bid for Workday challenges that view. A seasoned tech investor willing to pay a huge sum, reportedly $50 billion, for a classic SaaS company fits poorly with the early-2026 thesis that AI would soon devalue enterprise software. The winners should become a control and automation layer linking AI agents, company data and workflows. The rally was partly short covering. x.comÂ
Seat-based software incumbents have no obvious right to win the AI shift, so buying SaaS on a rebound call is risky. Dan Shipper, on Lenny Rachitsky's podcast, said SaaS stocks will be up majorly in the next couple of years. But paradigm shifts rarely favor incumbents: these companies are slow and bloated, with business models that keep them from fully adopting AI, while rivals are AI-native. Asking customers what they buy and how they rate incumbents' AI features may change minds. x.comÂ
Software stocks are bouncing back as investors realize companies like Microsoft and Oracle are becoming essential AI infrastructure rather than being replaced by AI. The IGV software ETF jumped about 13% last week, suggesting the worst panic selling may be over, and Bank of America sees a bottom forming. Even the hardest-hit names, Salesforce and Palo Alto Networks, are showing signs of life as investors move from fear back to quality. The sector is not completely out of the woods yet. x.comÂ
