The enterprise software industry is weathering a structural reckoning.
It's not because of a recession. It's not because of interest rates.
It's because of a realization that has finally hit the boardroom: AI agents are breaking the per-seat business model.
Wall Street is calling it the "SaaSpocalypse."
Workday is down ~39% year-to-date. Across the sector, legacy SaaS leaders are facing similar structural pressure as the market recalibrates the value of per-seat software in an agentic world.
But while the headlines focus on the stock prices, they are missing the bigger shift in how work actually gets done.
The "Build vs. Buy" pendulum has officially swung back.
According to Retool's 2026 State of Internal Tools report, 35% of enterprise teams have already replaced at least one SaaS tool with a custom build. 78% expect to build more in 2026.
Why? Because for the first time in history, building is faster than buying.
And I don't mean that theoretically.
Here is what we are seeing right now at Science4Data:
Our customers are building dedicated, production-ready AI applications inside Athena AI Studio — in under a few hours.
Not prototypes. Not chatbots. Fully functional, workflow-specific applications.
No code.
No IT procurement cycle.
No 12-month implementation.
They handle the 80% of functionality the team actually needs, perfectly tailored to their specific workflow without the bloat and complexity of a generic SaaS platform.
Here is the insight that changes everything for enterprise leaders:
It now takes more time to procure, negotiate, and learn a new SaaS app than it takes to build a better one inside Athena.
Think about that. The traditional software cycle — evaluate, negotiate, implement, train — costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes months.
With Athena: Describe what you need → App generated → Connected to your data → Deployed. Under an hour.
The "SaaSpocalypse" isn't the end of enterprise software.
It's the end of enterprise software that doesn't work the way your business works.
We've been building for this moment for two years.
I'm curious for those of you leading enterprise teams: are you seeing the same shift? Is your organization building more and buying less in 2026?
#SaaSpocalypse #EnterpriseAI #BuildVsBuy #FutureOfWork #NoCode #AI #SaaS #CEO #VibeWorking #AIAgents
