AI will accelerate B2B SaaS rent-seeking behaviours
I don’t think AI is Killing B2B SaaS as much as AI is killing the cash cow of selling subpar software to middle management for stupid-o’clock kind of money.
I find it fascinating that the ways to survive AI listed in the post linked above, all amount to become a bigger leech (lmao, yes!)
Be a system of record
Trap your customers into a silo so locked down that migrating away becomes a consultants feast for months on end, negating any short term economic win in leaving your expensive prison.Security, authentication, and robustness
Extort them in the compliance racket, scare them to death that they need platinum grade security and that your team of ex navy-seal turned pen-testers are there to provide peace of mind - at a price. Doesn't matter if your software is as shitty as everyone else, they can say they are compliant to another clueless person and the lawyers can go to lunch early, win-win all around.Adapt to the customer, not the other way around
Sell more services for custom functionality built on top of your closed source codebase that no one else will be able to support or understand, write it poorly too, so they keep coming back for more upgrades just to get the thing working. Charge a premium to run it in your platinum grade secure system of record of course.
In summary, do everything you can to shackle those customers to you for years to come, or they will vibe code a clone of your product in a month, then task IT to secure it, maybe bringing in a red-team and security consultants to validate that it’s not going to give away the secret recipe to any script kiddie on the block.
Yes, AI is not killing B2B SaaS in general, it is killing any B2B SaaS that is not pivoting to be new Microslop.