Thoughts on the Changing SaaS Industry and the Rise of AI Agents.

I have been following the technology world for some time, and I recently came across a quote by Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft). He said something along the lines of, “SaaS is dead.” In his view, all software applications we know today are just fancy interfaces sitting on databases. This statement made me pause and think about how quickly the software industry is evolving. As a civil engineer, I usually focus on infrastructure and design, but I also have a growing interest in artificial intelligence (AI). It seems to me that the future of SaaS (Software as a Service) will look very different from what we see today.

I agree with Satya Nadella’s view. Many traditional SaaS applications have become big, complicated systems. They often need large teams to maintain them, high budgets to market them, and complex servers to run them. But I believe we are entering a new era, where AI can do more and more of the heavy lifting. According to a recent TechCrunch article, developers are now using AI to automatically generate code, connect different APIs, and build small web apps without writing everything from scratch. This approach reduces time, cost, and effort. It also means that people with basic technical knowledge—or even none—can start creating their own “SaaS” solutions.

Why do I think AI is so important here? Because AI agents can learn how to speak and understand our natural language. Instead of needing a big development team, you could simply tell an AI agent, “Build me a form that connects to a database and displays a table of results,” and the agent would generate the code automatically. It could create the user interface, manage the logic for reading and writing data, and link everything together with minimal human effort. This is not a far-fetched idea. Already, we have AI tools that can generate text, create images, and write code snippets based on prompts.

I see this as a huge opportunity for small businesses, hobbyists, and even large enterprises. If AI can help build simpler, more focused applications, then we no longer need to pay high fees for a big SaaS product that might have many features we do not even use. Instead, we can have smaller, customized apps that do exactly what we need. As a civil engineer, I think of it like designing a small building instead of a huge skyscraper. It might serve a small group of people, but it fits their needs perfectly and is cheaper to build and maintain.

In many parts of the world, people are also looking for ways to make technology more accessible. AI-powered agents could help solve this problem. They can remove language barriers by understanding natural speech in different languages. They can also build solutions faster for people who do not have a background in programming. In my own field, I can imagine using an AI agent to create a quick tool that calculates structural loads, or that helps manage small-scale construction projects. It would be a specialized, low-cost SaaS that only a handful of people need, but it would still be valuable to them.

Furthermore, I see a big benefit in energy and resource use. Large-scale SaaS platforms require a lot of computing power, especially if they are handling millions of users. But if more people create smaller, more targeted AI-driven tools, we might use fewer resources overall. Each app is only doing one thing for a limited audience. There is no need for huge data centers or massive marketing budgets.

In conclusion, I believe Satya Nadella’s statement that “SaaS is dead” is a sign that we are shifting from big, one-size-fits-all software solutions to smaller, AI-driven applications that can be created on-demand. The fast growth of AI, including natural language processing and code generation, makes it possible for anyone to build custom apps that solve real problems. This is good news for people in all industries, including my own field of civil engineering, because it will allow us to focus on specific tasks and let AI handle the technical side. I am excited to see where this trend goes, and I think we will soon witness a future where almost anyone can say, “Build me a tool for my needs,” and an AI agent will do exactly that.