People predicting the end of SaaS, because of AI agents. But why does the SaaS paradigm have to end? Here is my prediction: AI agents are an evolutionary step in the SaaS ecosystem. It will replace SaaS that dont take the next step. Absolutely. But looking at the sheer value of some SaaS, AI agents are just going to be incorperated into the ecosystem and boom they will be much higher valued than before.
Let’s take a quick look at what a SaaS has to implement
Personalization is a key factor when it comes to hyper-automatisation with AI. Creating your own dashboard will be a thing of the past. Now an AI will proactively do that for you, cause it “knows” how you’re using the product. Also user role managemet will be a thing of the past. An AI define whether people are able to see and access data or not.
Conversational interfaces play a big part, when it comes to working with data. We are moving further away of how computers acutally work. That is a good thing. Because this not how humans work. Humans talk to each other. They write and speak. Once a computer, with all the data and algorithms joins, we suddenly have to change to working with spreadsheets and databases. This is stupid. The computer should come closer to us and speak our language, instead of vice versa.
Contextual awareness Clippy is back \o/
So all in all the debate is settled. SaaS is still relevant. Even more, once the builders and maintainers deciding to integrate AI agents in to their software with the right use cases. Let the UX research do their job and everything else will follow. I promise.