Last week's sharp decline in US stocks included one signal that was amplified by the market: The debut of Claude Opus 4.6 and OpenAI Codex-5.3.
These are not just model upgrades, but rather things that allow more people to truly experience for the first time:A large number of "functional SaaS" are losing their competitive advantage..
This doesn't mean all SaaS will die out immediately, but...A certain type of SaaS has entered a high-risk zone..
Services like Jotform, DocuSign, Monday, and Ragic, which focus on "processes, forms, approvals, and management interfaces," are essentially:
Transform requirements into rules, processes, UI, and documentation.
Packaged into a usable product
This task is now being handled by AI.The time reminder is no longer measured in "years," but in "months.".
The real risk of SaaS is not that it's "unusable," but that it "whether it can survive."
The biggest risk when using this type of SaaS today isn't actually the price or the lack of features, but rather...
If it can't hold on, do you want to move?
But here comes the problem:
- If one goes out of business, you can move.
- If many businesses can't survive, where will you move to?
- Are we destined to forever drift between different SaaS providers?
When the entire market begins to "internal build" in large quantities.The option of "switching to another SaaS provider" will disappear in itself..
The next step is not to "change the tools," but to "change the structure."
Next, you will see a clear trend:
Enterprises are no longer relying on external SaaS assembly processes, but are starting to build their own internal systems.
Not every company needs to maintain an entire engineering team; rather:
- The tools that were originally rented
- It becomes an internal operating system that is "self-controllable, expandable, and integrateable".
At this point, what is truly scarce is no longer just engineers, but...
Enterprise Architect.
An architect is not someone who writes code, but someone who "knows how to build systems".
This role is crucial, but it is also often misunderstood.
He doesn't necessarily have to write a lot of code, but he must understand:
- How to integrate software and processes
- How are AI, data, UI, and permissions integrated?
- How to choose and configure public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud?
- What should we do ourselves, what should we outsource, and what should we use open source?
Simply put, he is "Digital architects. "
Renting a house vs. building your own house
You can think of current SaaS as a "rented house":
- Convenient, fast, and low upfront costs
- But it could be taken back, resold, or have its water and electricity cut off at any time.
The change now is:
AI is significantly lowering the barrier to entry for building your own house..
But "easier" ≠ "doesn't require understanding".
That's why you need an architect to help you plan the whole house, instead of just randomly building a tin shack.
The conclusion is actually quite simple.
As more and more people start building their own systems
The space for SaaS to survive will be squeezed..
If you continue to rely on them, you will bear the systemic risk of the service suddenly disappearing.
This risk is already visible.
It's just that most people haven't started to take it seriously yet.
In 2026, this storyline is almost certain to unfold in full.
If you still rely heavily on SaaS (not all, but especially office, process, and management services).
What you should be doing right now isn't asking "Should we change tools?"
Instead, they began to think:
If one day I can no longer use SaaS, how will my system survive?
This isn't intimidation, it's a warning. And the alarm has already sounded...
