The software sector just entered its fourth major sell-off since 2021. Over a trillion dollars in market cap erased. The WCLD cloud index is down 54% over five years while the NASDAQ is up 61% over the same period. The narrative I keep hearing is consistent: AI is coming for SaaS, and it is coming fast.
I think that narrative is right. I just think the market is painting with too broad a brush.
The Right Question Is Not Whether AI Disrupts Software. It Is Which Software.
Not all SaaS is created equal. Some software exists to automate workflows. Some exists to organize information. Some exists to facilitate communication. These categories are genuinely vulnerable to AI disruption, because AI can replicate the underlying function at a fraction of the cost.
But there is another category of software — the kind built on top of proprietary, real-world data that cannot be fabricated, scraped, or replicated by a model trained on the open internet. That category is not being disrupted by AI. It is being made more valuable by it.
The answer to which software survives comes down to one word: data.
Intelligence Is Commoditizing. Context Is Not.
Two years ago, GPT-4 level intelligence cost around $60 a month. Today, that same capability costs just under a dollar. AI models are commoditizing at a pace that would have seemed impossible even recently, and that trend is not slowing down.
What is not commoditizing is context. Proprietary, real-world data that gives an AI model something true and specific to reason about. Without it, even the most capable model is guessing. With it, the model becomes genuinely useful.
This is especially true as AI agents become a bigger part of how software actually operates. Agents do not eliminate the systems underneath them. They run on top of those systems. The CRM, the data warehouse, the measurement platform — these get more valuable as agents proliferate, not less, because agents need clean, authoritative, trusted data to act on. Bad data in, bad actions out. At scale. The companies that own canonical data are the ones agents depend on to function.
That is exactly what Attain has spent years building. We sit on top of real-time, permissioned purchase data from millions of U.S. consumers. This is not synthetic data. It is not scraped from the web. It is deterministic, opt-in commerce behavior — the kind of ground-truth signal that every AI model, every agent, and every marketer needs but cannot fabricate on their own.
When I think about which companies are built to win in an AI-driven world, the framework is clear. The durable ones are the companies with proprietary data and complex, domain-specific workflows. The vulnerable ones are the companies competing on workflows that AI can replicate. We are firmly in the first category.
Three Things I Am Watching
AI makes our data more valuable, not less.
As brands move away from gut-feel marketing toward outcome-driven measurement, the demand for deterministic purchase data accelerates. AI does not replace what we do. It amplifies it. Every new model, every new agent, every new AI-powered marketing tool still needs ground-truth data to deliver real results. That is the position we occupy.
The real economy matters.
Vertical software serving generic business services faces real disruption risk. But platforms tied to actual consumer transactions and real economic activity occupy a fundamentally different position. Our data is not about clicks or impressions or modeled behavior. It is about what people actually bought, where they bought it, and when. That kind of signal does not go out of style.
Private companies have a real advantage right now.
While public companies are navigating stock price volatility and the pressure that comes with it, we can invest with conviction and a longer time horizon. The shakeout creates noise. We can tune it out and keep building.
What the Shakeout Actually Produces
Market corrections are uncomfortable. They are also clarifying. The companies that survive a shakeout are not always the biggest or the best funded. They are the ones whose core value proposition holds up under pressure.
My view is simple: the winners of the SaaS shakeout will be the companies that own the data AI depends on, not the ones competing on workflows AI can replicate. The losers will be the ones who built on top of capabilities that are now table stakes.
We are building the former. And if I am being direct, the current environment makes me more confident in that direction, not less. The market is sorting itself out. I like where we stand.
Interested in learning more about how Attain's purchase data powers better outcomes for marketers? Reach out to our team.
.avif)
