Will AI destroy the SaaS model?

Looking back at how things used to be in the online world I cannot help noticing that a seismic change is coming our way. Twenty years ago, for example, if I needed to watermark an image or a PDF document, the easiest way to do so was to purchase a specialized software that had this capability. This lead to the expansion of a lot of businesses that used the Shareware model as their main business strategy. And this worked well for almost two decades, from the early 90’s to the late 2000’s. And then everything changed.

The Emergence of SaaS

But as server capabilities and internet speeds increased exponentially, more and more complex tasks moved from the user’s personal computer to the cloud. It was now easier to upload large files so they can be processed directly on an online server. And, maybe the most important thing, it was easier, more convenient. The future technology was making our lives easier. And we loved that. We embraced it. But change was again on the horizon.

The New Kid on the Block

At the beginning of the 2020’s we started hearing whispers of a new technology that was coming our way: AI. It started as a rumor. The first time I heard about AI, it was presented to me as a very advanced chat bot that could answer ANY question related to ANYTHING. So I gave it a try. I tried to give it a programming task that it could not solve. I couldn’t. And it did not stop here. Just a few months later I had my first contact with an AI image generator. It could create images and logos based on a prompt. The revolution was here. The status-quo was being challenged.

The Future

Now let’s take a step back and try to predict what the future holds in store for us. The fact that you can now generate a logo for free using an AI image generator will make all the software and online services that offered this option obsolete. They will basically disappear in time. The fact that AI can now generate, edit and convert any type of document for you for free will for sure lead to the disappearance of those types of online services. So basically AI will swipe the slate clean. What will remain? We shall see.