ServiceNow's seat business is being cannibalized faster than AI deals can replace it. Next-quarter cRPO growth is guided to 18.5%, down from 20.5%, while subscription growth was 24.5% two quarters ago; agentic usage on its platform is up 13x. Management points to AI deal value heading to $1.7bn, against a roughly $16bn subscription business. The slowdown leaves more pain ahead. Underweight, $90 target. x.com  x.com 

Agentic AI strengthens the platforms that give agents a governed home rather than killing SaaS. Agents need persistent identity, permissions and shared memory, which lock them inside existing systems of record and turn each workflow into higher-value consumption. ServiceNow grew subscriptions 21-22% while its stock halved, and 60% of Salesforce Agentforce bookings come from existing customers. UiPath and Palantir also orchestrate agents. The selloff priced a broken model, not this. x.com  x.com  … Show more

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.com 

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.com 

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.com 

Large mission-critical software platforms such as Atlassian, Twilio, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow and SAP are being lifted by AI, not destroyed by it. Datadog hit an all-time high on AI after Atlassian and Twilio accelerated. They can charge external AI agents a toll to access their systems of record, volume set to grow 100x in 12-24 months; sell their own agents; and expand into areas like security. AI resembles web to mobile, a tailwind for the best companies, though not all SaaS is safe. … Show more

AI embedded throughout software could bring huge future token spend to Amazon and Alphabet, whose AWS and GCP clouds host software builders and offer AI platforms. Ramp data show VC-backed firms spend 10 times more per employee on AI monthly than PE-owned and other firms, a possible leading indicator of software using more tokens relative to people. VC-driven demand is vulnerable to capital-cycle swings, but longer term incumbent software may become AI-native or be replaced. x.com 

FactSet risks having its app usage automated from outside and becoming unmonetizable as AI agents operate it directly. Its MCP integration was a huge advance and a growth driver, worth perhaps a 20% subscription uplift, but OpenAI's computer use worked well on a regular desktop session, if much slower, and simply noted the FactSet subscription to use when needed. SaaS bear points from earlier this year are materializing quickly. x.com  x.com 

AI will not replace Fortune 500 CRM platforms, as the moat of Salesforce, ServiceNow and HubSpot goes beyond the software. It lies in the data model, integrations, workflows and customer records; agents may even raise the value of a trusted system of record. Thin workflow tools are vulnerable and seat pricing faces pressure. Platforms that make AI a native operating layer to expand usage and monetization should be pretty good investments; they look near the end of a multi-year correction. x.com 

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.com