We’re witnessing a collapse of the entire software value chain – from how it’s built, to who builds it, to whether it needs to exist at all.
Phase 1: The Deskilling of Coding (Now)
AI is learning to write code so well that humans barely need to anymore.
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AI coding assistants (Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) are rapidly reducing the skill floor needed to build functional software.
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Human coders are shifting from writing code to directing and reviewing AI-generated code.
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The trajectory points toward zero manual coding – humans become intent-specifiers, not implementers.
Phase 2: The SaaS Extinction Event (Emerging)
If anyone can build their own tools, nobody needs to pay for someone else’s.
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The moat for most SaaS products was “building this is hard.” That moat is evaporating.
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When anyone can spin up a custom tool in hours, paying $50/mo/seat for a generic one stops making sense.
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The most vulnerable: mid-tier SaaS with commodity features and no proprietary data advantage (project management, CRM, form builders, internal dashboards, etc.).
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Survivors will be platforms with deep network effects, proprietary data, or regulatory lock-in.
Phase 3: The Rise of Agentic Systems (Accelerating)
AI agents are moving beyond writing code to actually doing the work themselves.
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Autonomous agents (Hermes Agent (the best so far), OpenClaw, OpenAI Operator/Codex, Perplexity Assistant/Computer, Claude Cowork, etc.) are moving from demos to daily-use tools.
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These systems don’t just build software – they do the job the software was meant to facilitate.
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Key shift: from “tool you operate” → “agent you instruct.”
Phase 4: Software Becomes Unnecessary (Near-term
horizon)
You don’t need an app when you can just tell an AI to do the thing the app would have done.
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The logical endpoint: if an agent can do the task, there’s no need for an app that helps you do the task.
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Software was always a middleman between intent and outcome. Agents collapse that gap.
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Example: You don’t need a spreadsheet app if you can say “track my expenses and flag anything unusual monthly.”
Software was the answer to “how do I do this?”
– agents make the question irrelevant.
Notes:
Get AgentAutoFlow (the tool I created to do the heavy lifting for you) free here: https://github.com/ScotterMonk/AgentAutoFlow
Watch the animated musical story / prediction of where things could be going and how we get there.
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