Oracle executives downplayed fears that AI will spell the death of software-as-a-service companies.
Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison said during the company’s earnings call Tuesday that he believes the so-called Saaspocalypse will be a problem for other companies, but not for him.
“We now have these coding tools that allow us to build a comprehensive set of software, agent-based software, to deploy to automate an entire ecosystem like healthcare or financial services,” Ellison said. “That’s what we do at Oracle. That’s why we think we’re a disruptor. That’s why we think the Saaspocalypse applies to others, but not to us.”
Fears that AI will replace traditional software tools have been particularly high over the past month Anthropic has released new agent AI toolsleading to a sell-off in software stocks including Salesforce and Asana.
Oracle CEO Mike Sicilia also said during the earnings call that he disagrees with the Saaspocalypse idea.
“I think AI tools and their coding capabilities would be a threat if we didn’t adopt them, but we are, and very quickly,” he said. “We are building brand new SaaS products using AI and also integrating AI agents directly into our existing application suites.”
Sicilia added, “I haven’t met a customer yet who tells me they’re ready to give away their retail merchandising system, their core banking system, deposit account systems, electronic health record systems, and a bunch of aggregations of niche AI features that will replace all of this overnight. In fact, we hear quite a bit that
towards customers.”
Oracle isn’t the only company trying to downplay fears that AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI will pose a threat to software giants.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently tried to reassure investors that the company’s focus on AI agents would protect it from the software apocalypse. “If there is a ‘SaaSpocalypse,’ it could be eaten by the ‘SaaS quatch,’ because there are a lot of companies that are using a lot of SaaS because things have only gotten better with agents,” he said.
Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri also tried to allay fears during the company’s earnings call last week that HR and enterprise software systems require complex security and regulatory needs, and boasted that AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI run their software.
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