Breakthrough in the Software Industry: Salesforce and Snowflake Results Cool Fears of SaaSpocalypse

The global software sector has reached a turning point, which industry experts call the "SaaSpocalypse." This phenomenon involves the rapid revaluation of SaaS companies in the face of the growing power of AI models. Investors began to doubt the rationale for paying expensive licenses for CRM or ERP systems, fearing that autonomous AI agents, like those offered by Anthropic or OpenAI, would take over their functions. However, the speech by Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, during the quarterly results announcement, brought some relief. Benioff reminded that the industry has already survived similar crises in 2020 and is ready for another transformation. Despite solid fundamentals, the situation is not uniform. Salesforce, while exceeding analysts' profit expectations and announcing a massive buyback worth $50 billion, presented cautious growth forecasts for the upcoming fiscal year. Meanwhile, the Snowflake platform recorded a record contract worth $400 million, proving that demand for the organized data necessary for training AI continues to grow. At the same time, smaller entities like C3.ai are undergoing painful restructuring, reducing employment by over a quarter. Hardware manufacturers are also feeling cost increases – HP warns that RAM prices now constitute 35% of PC production costs, which will inevitably translate into price hikes for end customers. The cloud software sector underwent similar skepticism at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, when traditional boxed software vendors questioned the security and stability of online solutions. On the Polish market, technology companies such as Vercom, Shoper, and cyber_Folks were hit by ricochet. Experts from the WSE emphasize that the sell-off of their shares stems more from a global deterioration in sentiment towards the IT segment than from real operational problems of these companies. In the shadow of software concerns, companies providing infrastructure and security are experiencing a real boom. Axon, the producer of Tasers and body cameras, recorded a 39% revenue increase thanks to AI integration with evidence systems, becoming one of the growth leaders on the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, energy companies like Sempra are increasing spending on network infrastructure to meet the gigantic appetite of AI data centers for electricity. „This is not our first SaaSpocalypse. We made it through that... and we're going to make it through this one as well.” — Marc Benioff The phenomenon of labor market transformation is becoming a fact. Goldman Sachs warns that AI could lead to increased unemployment in sectors most susceptible to automation, which is already visible in the insurance (Allianz) and media (Agora) industries. Technology companies, trying to protect margins, are focusing budgets on key "agentic AI" projects, forcing cuts in departments dealing with older technologies. Investors will now be watching closely whether platforms like Salesforce's Agentforce can actually generate the promised hundreds of millions of dollars in recurring revenue, or if they will remain merely marketing promises in difficult times.