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 on Tuesday that he believes the so-called Saaspocalypse will be a problem for other companies, but not his.
“We have these coding tools now that allow us to build a comprehensive set of software, agent-based software, to implement to automate a complete ecosystem like healthcare or financial services,” Ellison said. “That’s what we’re doing 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, after Anthropic released new agentic AI tools, triggering a sell-off in software stocks, including Salesforce and Asana.
Oracle CEO Mike Sicilia also said on the earnings call that he doesn’t agree with the idea of the Saaspocalypse.
“I do think that AI tools and their coding capabilities would be a threat if we weren’t adopting them, but we are, and very rapidly,” he said. “We are building brand new SaaS products using AI and also embedding AI agents right into our existing applications suites.”
Sicilia added, “I’ve not yet met a customer who tells me they’re ready to give away their retail merchandising system, their core banking system, demand deposit account systems, electronic health record systems, and some cobbling together of niche AI features are going to replace all of that overnight. In fact, we hear quite the
opposite from the customers.”
Oracle isn’t the only company trying to downplay the fears of AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI becoming a threat to software giants.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently tried to reassure investors that the company’s focus on AI agents would insulate it from the software apocalypse. “If there is a ‘SaaSpocalypse’, it may be eaten by the ‘SaaS-quatch’ because there are a lot of companies using a lot of SaaS because it just got 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 business software systems require complex security and regulatory needs, and boasted that AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI are running its software.
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