‘It’s going to make software so much better’: Marc Benioff and Jensen Huang aren’t sold on the ‘SaaSpocalypse’ – AI will take the industry to the next level

2026 has been dominated by claims of a looming ‘SaaSpocalypse’, with AI heralding the doom of software as we know it. Marc Benioff and Jensen Huang aren’t convinced.

During the opening day keynote at Dreamforce 2026, the Nvidia and Salesforce CEOs dismissed the prospect of SaaS dying off.

Concerns on this front mounted earlier this the year with the launch of Anthropic's Claude Cowork. The new service, which offered enterprises agents equipped with sector-specific capabilities, prompted a mass sell-off of software stocks

In early February, the S&P 500 software software and services index slipped by nearly 5%, losing $830 billion in market value in a matter of days.

Huang told Benioff that even amidst growing industry concerns, he wasn’t fully convinced. AI might have an impact on the software industry, but more in the sense that it will complement and redefine SaaS.

“I was the first CEO to come out - not in the software industry - to say the end of software is nonsense,” he said. “This is going to be a layer on top of software. This new layer on top of software is going to be agentic.”

“It’s going to make software so much better.”

Huang’s comments came after Benioff reflected on the state of the software industry earlier in the keynote, describing claims this year as “crazy nonsense”.

“We've been hearing all this kind of crazy nonsense about the SaaSpocalypse, especially over the last six months,” he told attendees. Similar to Huang’s outlook on this front, Benioff noted that AI will ultimately be a net positive for the software industry and users.

“We realize that the SaaSpocalypse isn’t about the end of software, but it may be about the end of software that makes humans do all the work,” he said.

Salesforce’s earnings on this front, Benioff said, are testament to the fact that it’s weathered this storm so far. The CRM giant’s Q2 earnings, released in August, marked its best performance on Wall Street since 2020 and among the best in the company’s history.

Revenue in areas such as Agentforce and Data 360, for example, reached nearly $3.9 billion, marking a 210% increase year-over-year.

SaaS isn't dying, but it's still changing

Huang and Benioff join a host of tech industry leaders to shrug off claims that AI will render SaaS obsolete. As ITPro reported in February this year, AWS CEO Matt Garman said “much of the fear is overblown” but admitted that the technology will prompt huge changes in the industry.

The arrival of AI, particularly agentic AI, will change how software is built and consumed, he said at the time. That means existing providers will face a more competitive business landscape and force them to work harder to secure – and maintain – market share.

Research from Gartner in late June highlighted this new reality for software providers. Agentic AI does pose a threat to traditional software revenue models, according to the consultancy, with up to $234 billion of application spending exposed to “agentic arbitrage”.

This is a process whereby agents render some services obsolete and removes the need to work across multiple interfaces. Salesforce, it seems, is ahead of the curve on this front.

The company unveiled AIforce ahead of Dreamforce. This is a new ‘live interface layer’ that sits on top of its core product ranges, such as Agentforce, Data 360, and Customer 360.

Put simply, AIforce means users can use Salesforce without actually accessing the platform through traditional dashboard routes. Instead, users can access services, data sources, and information through agents such as Anthropic's Claude with their own custom-built UIs.

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