Um. Hi. This is What Generative AI Is For. It’s For When SaaS Is Dead.

I’ve been skeptical of Generative AI for over a year, because I know where this is headed

Last month, I wrote an article predicting the end of SaaS, and people lost their minds. Well, people who didn’t read the article lost their minds. Or those people who have a stake in the SaaS status quo, yeah, they lost their minds.

In another article a couple days ago, I asked if AI was just another big investor headfake, like NFTs.

Not as many people lost their minds. Apparently people love SaaS, but are skeptical of AI. Me too.

I’ve got a long history with Generative AI. I was there at the beginning, with Automated Insights, co-inventing the first Gen-AI platform that was being used in mass market applications. We exited to a private equity firm in 2015, and after that I believe they went the wrong way with the tech and I left in 2018.

The thing is, I’ve been skeptical of Generative AI for over a year now, because I already know where this is headed. I know the right way to use the tech. It’s killing me.

And it has to do with the end of SaaS.

I Didn’t Say SaaS Was Dead

I said that the end of what we’re calling SaaS is closer than you think. It’s right there in the title, haters.

TL;DR;Just-fired-off-an-angry-comment: Oracle and SAP aren’t going bankrupt tomorrow. But we’re quickly approaching the inflection point where the user expectations and the tech are converging on a Do-It-For-Me brand of data analysis that’s going to eclipse the current Do-It-Yourself model.

Thus, developers of software and apps will no longer be able to get away with just barfing out aggregated and summarized data back to the user for them to make their own business decisions. When people talk about the uselessness of apps like Google Analytics 4 (GA4), which is actually very useful for people who know how to crunch the data, this is what they’re talking about.

As I said in the article, the effect of Generative AI is going to bring about a rise in demand from the customer who wants solid decision options laid out…