The expected “structural disruption” of the software began on January 12, 2026, with the official launch do Claude Coworkfrom Anthropic, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent for desktop capable of managing local files, navigating complex enterprise interfaces, and deploying “parallel subagents” to handle massive data entry and analysis tasks.
On January 30, 2026, Anthropic released 11 plug-ins specialized open source software that allows Claude Cowork handle specific tasks such as legal document discovery, tax accounting, and automated sales prospecting. THE Claude Cowork not only assists human workers, but also executes complex workflows independently.
The resulting “license compression” – in which companies need a much smaller number of licenses software to do the same amount of work – has triggered a massive reassessment across the entire technology sector. Companies providing software specialists saw their shares plummet.
In the first week of February, the contagion spread to “Software as a General Purpose Service” (SaaS), as corporate purchasing departments began announcing plans to “rightsize” their suites of softwareciting the efficiency gains provided by the new generation of autonomous AI tools. Clearly, investors expect widespread adoption of AI agents (like Claude Cowork) catalyze the dismantling of the foundations of the SaaS business model.
It is “SaaSpocalypse” marks the transition from the “cloud era” to the “agent era.” Over the past 20 years, the software followed the “registration system” model – the software it was where humans entered and stored data.
The “action system” model, introduced by Claude Coworkreverses this logic: the very “software”-AI agent performs the work, and the human only supervises. This change profoundly alters the human/human ratio software that has governed technology companies since the 1990s.
If one AI agent can replace the work of five humans, the total addressable market (TAM) for softwares license-based revenue declines by 80% unless these companies find a new way to capture value.
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