The SaaS model that has dominated the last two decades of technology is starting to crumble. AI is rewriting the rules of value creation, and the shift is happening faster than anyone expected.
But don’t believe the bold headlines. SaaS isn’t dying — it’s simply evolving faster than most companies can keep up. As AI reshapes the entire SaaS landscape, the question isn’t whether your product is good — it’s whether your strategy is built for what’s next.
In a recent webinar, we spoke with leaders from Salesforce, C3 AI and Sage to understand what this shift means. Spoiler Alert: The winners won’t be the companies with the best features. Instead, the leaders will be the companies that rethink how they build, deliver and lead.
The overall consensus of our webinar was indeed, SaaS is transforming, and the change is happening faster than you think. We dove into the conversation about the fundamental shift in how we create, sell and deliver value.
The internet gave birth to the original SaaS model and now, AI is developing the next technological framework. This change with AI impacts everything, from how engineers build products to what customers expect from the products. The important question isn’t about survival, but rather, it’s about readiness.
At Growth Acceleration Partners (GAP), we’ve seen the struggles, and our AI experts see this as more than a technical challenge; it’s a strategic one.
AI is a powerful new platform that demands a reevaluation of your product roadmap, engineering culture and approach to value creation. Instead of being viewed as a threat, AI should be embraced as a major driver for a new wave of innovation. It’s already reshaping business as we know it, and this shift represents a significant opportunity. To capitalize on it, you need to shift your mindset and refine your strategy to adapt.
Shaping the New Standard for Customers
Customers no longer compare you only to your competitors; they compare you to the best experience they’ve had anywhere. The way you interact with tools like ChatGPT has changed your expectations for all software. Dickson noted that features once seen as “nice to have,” like automated invoice entry, are now a basic necessity in accounting software.
Customers have experienced a new level of ease and expect it everywhere. Webinar panelist Chris Featherstone, Senior Director of AI/Data Product & Program Management at Salesforce, added that this isn’t just a corporate trend. Your users’ biases are shaped by their best consumer experiences, whether it’s Amazon’s two-day shipping or a seamless app. If your product doesn’t deliver that same level of efficiency and intuitiveness, you’re already falling behind.
The Elephant in the Room: Data
For many leaders, the biggest fear related to AI adoption isn’t the technology itself, but data governance and unpredictable outcomes. We all know the feeling: you’re excited about AI, but your data is scattered and messy. The fear that it isn’t “perfect” enough is a common one.
As panelist Varun Shrimal, Senior Director of AI Products at C3 AI, pointed out, no company’s data is ever truly perfect. The real challenge is to move past this fear and embrace a strategic approach.
This means focusing on building a consistent data model that can be used effectively, rather than aiming for a massive, one-time cleanup. Shrimal shared a great example of how C3 AI helps companies create a “digital twin” of their data, making it usable for AI without waiting for a complex overhaul.
This shift in mindset is about moving beyond just looking at what happened (descriptive) and into a world where you can anticipate and guide outcomes (prescriptive and predictive). A fantastic example of this is an agent-based system that can analyze global tariffs and recommend alternative sourcing locations in minutes, a task that used to take weeks. This ability to provide actionable, forward-looking insights is the key difference between a legacy product and a winning one.
The Path to Agility: A Practical Framework
Sooo… where do you start? Our experts offered a simple, yet powerful, framework to set your company on the right path: crawl, walk, run.
Crawl to Secure a Quick Win: As panelist David Dickson, former SVP of AI at Sage, advises, get a quick win. This could mean finding a high-value problem an AI feature can solve, and get it into production fast. His mantra was really pretty simple: “Production, or it didn’t happen.” This action builds both momentum and executive buy-in.
Walk to Embed and Optimize: Once you have your win, it’s time to embed the AI feature directly into your product’s core business process flow. Optimize the model, refine the data and scale its use, so that AI moves from a technical experiment to a core part of your value proposition.
Run to Expand with Agility: With a proven framework and established momentum, you can more confidently tackle more complex challenges. At this stage, you should be actively building custom models where you need a competitive edge and use off-the-shelf solutions for commodity tasks. This agile mindset, as Featherstone pointed out, is what separates the winners from the rest.
The Winning Mindset: Prescriptive and Problem-Focused
Looking ahead, the leading companies will be those that quickly and effectively evolve beyond simple data delivery. The new competitive frontier isn’t just providing a lagging indicator of performance, like last month’s sales numbers. Instead, it’s about delivering a prescriptive, forward-looking product.
Think about the difference. A traditional product may tell a customer what their sales were. A winning, AI-powered product reports sales, but also analyzes the data, predicts a potential drop in sales next quarter and proactively recommends a mitigation strategy. This strategic shift from reactive to proactive is what separates market leaders from those who become irrelevant. It requires a deep understanding of your customers’ business and the courage to build a product that provides answers, not just data.
We at GAP believe AI is not an existential threat to your business. It is, however, the most significant opportunity to create an unfair advantage by building technology that truly anticipates and solves customer problems. The companies that establish a problem-focused, agile culture will be the ones that win the future.
A powerful transformation is underway and it’s no longer a question of “if,” but “how,” your organization will adapt.
If you haven’t seen the webinar, please go watch the on-demand version of “Is SaaS Dying? How to Stay Relevant and Resilient in a Changing Industry.”
And then even if you’re not in finance, banking, PE or VC, we encourage you to join us for our next webinar, AI in FinTech: Learn Growth Strategies and Explore the Rise of AI Agents. We’ll move beyond the hype and share how senior leaders from JPMorgan Chase, Open Lending, Eagle Pay and Trigger are using AI to drive real gains in FP&A, compliance and customer experience.
You’ll get concrete frameworks and practical “no regrets” moves for safe, scalable AI adoption. We look forward to seeing you there!
