Is the “SaaS Doomsday Theory” bankrupt? Autodesk (ADSK.US) and Intu.US (INTU.US) bucked the trend, and Wall Street repriced the “AI devours software” narrative

The Zhitong Finance App learned that against the backdrop of turmoil in global financial markets caused by the escalation of the war in Iran, soaring oil prices, and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, the two enterprise-level software companies have emerged from an independent market.

This week, Autodesk (ADSK.US) and Intu.US (INTU.US) are expected to record their strongest weekly gains in months, bucking the trend against the backdrop of overall pressure on the technology sector, releasing a signal that the market is once again optimistic about the growth prospects of the SaaS (Software as a Service) industry. By Thursday's close, Autodesk had risen about 10% so far this week, and Caijie had risen about 8%, both of which were among the top ten increases in the Nasdaq 100 index. Over the same period, NASDAQ 100 ETF-Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ.US), which tracks the NASDAQ 100 index, fell slightly by about 0.3%.

This stark contrast has once again drawn the market's attention back to a core proposition that has been shaking Wall Street since February of this year: the so-called “end of SaaS” — that is, artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally disrupt the enterprise software business model — is alarmist, or is it an ongoing structural transformation?

Changing market narratives: From “SaaS apocalypse” fears to selective recovery

In February 2026, Anthropic announced new capabilities for its Claude's Cowork feature to accelerate contract review, confidentiality agreement classification, and compliance workflows for in-house legal teams. Among them, only four pieces of descriptive text triggered a collective setback in the software sector. Panic continued from late February to March and April, and tens of billions of dollars of market value evaporated.

The market's concern is that AI agents will reduce the manpower structure of enterprises, thereby reducing the size of SaaS subscriptions billed by “seat”; “Ambient Programming” enables companies to use natural language to build their own internal tools, further weakening the value proposition of dedicated software. Driven by this logic, software stocks plummeted at the beginning of the year, and the stock prices of large software companies such as CRM.US (CRM.US), Adobe (ADBE.US), Caijie, and ServiceNow (NOW.US) fell 25% to 30% within a few weeks.

However, in the second half of the year, the narrative was significantly reversed. Cybersecurity stocks, including Okta (OKTA.US) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW.US), have all rebounded and hit record highs. Global SaaS leader SAFTSE has accumulated a cumulative rebound of nearly 50% from its June low. The catalyst for this round of rebound came from SAFTSE's results for the second fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2027 announced on August 26: the company revealed that its current remaining performance obligations (CrPO) reached US$33.5 billion, an increase of 14% year over year, and Agentforce's annual recurring revenue exceeded US$1.5 billion, up 240% year over year.

Following the announcement of the earnings report, SAFTSE's stock price soared more than 22% in a single day, the biggest one-day increase in six years. KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader concluded at the time: “We are all gradually realising that the industry will be more resilient than expected.” Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said in the research report that he is witnessing “the revenge of software geeks,” and believes that the threat of AI replacement is seriously overrated.

Autodesk: Acquisition transaction triggers sector revaluation

Seen alone, the core driving force behind Autodesk's current round of gains comes from an industry-level merger and acquisition deal. On October 5, French industrial giant Schneider Electric SE (Schneider Electric SE) announced the acquisition of industrial software manufacturer PTC Inc., in an all-cash transaction of approximately US$22.6 billion, equivalent to US$205 per share, a 42.3% premium over PTC's closing price on the previous trading day. The transaction implied PTC's corporate value of approximately US$23.7 billion and was the largest merger and acquisition in Schneider Electric's history.

Schneider Electric CEO Olivier Blum said in an investor communication that PTC's engineering and design data will enhance Schneider's ability to deploy AI in customers' industrial operations. The deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2027 and will be funded through a combination of equity and additional debt. Schneider expects to achieve an annual cost synergy of about 250 million euros and a revenue synergy of about 800 million euros after the third year.

For Autodesk, the direct significance of this deal lies in its valuation anchoring effect on the entire engineering and industrial software sector. PTC was acquired at a 42.3% premium, forcing investors to re-examine the reasonable valuation ranges of companies with similar business characteristics on this track. However, Autodesk has significant business overlap with PTC in the fields of building design, engineering and construction (AECO), and digitalization of manufacturing, and the “undervalued” label given by the market has received stronger support as a result.

At the same time, Autodesk's own operating data also provided support. The company's financial report released in August showed that revenue for the second quarter of the fiscal year increased 16.1% year-on-year to US$2.05 billion, exceeding market expectations of US$2.01 billion; non-GAAP earnings per share were US$3.30, higher than market expectations of US$3.12. Chief Financial Officer Janesh Moorjani raised the fiscal year 2027 billing guidelines to $8.575 billion to $8.65 billion, revenue guidance to $8.295 billion to $8.345 billion, and the non-GAAP operating margin guidelines remained at around 39% during a conference call.

At the AI strategy level, Autodesk also places “project intelligence” (project intelligence) at the core. CEO Andrew Anagnost described the concept as a continuous flow of data and context from design to construction or manufacturing, and extending to operations. The company's integration with MaintainX is seen as a key step in extending this closed loop — strengthening the underlying data foundation for AI training by introducing real asset performance data to feed back design and manufacturing processes. Furthermore, the AI function of the Fusion platform has advanced significantly. Customer participation in Assistant and AI functions continues to deepen, and the number of users, annual contract value, revenue, and multi-seat procurement have all continued to grow.

Caijie: Valuation Fixes and Management Confidence Signals

The background of Caijie's current rebound is a phased restoration of market sentiment. In September, the company's management publicly stated that it believed there was a “significant mismatch” between the stock price and the company's fundamental value at the time. Subsequently, the company's founder and senior management team announced the termination of the previously planned share sale plan to strengthen confidence in the company's future. This statement forms an important anchor of confidence in the market.

The fourth quarter results of the fiscal year released by Caijie at the end of August were also strong: revenue of US$4.35 billion and adjusted earnings per share of US$4.03, both exceeding market expectations. However, the market reaction was completely anchored in the performance guide for fiscal year 2027 — management expected revenue growth to slow to 9% to 10%, a significant deceleration from 14% the previous year, and stock prices were heavily pressured as a result.

While stock prices were under pressure, Caijie continued to advance large-scale shareholder return plans. By the end of fiscal year 2026, the company had completed a multi-year repurchase plan of approximately 31.07 million shares, totaling approximately US$14.72 billion, and raised its quarterly dividend to US$1.38 per share. Management clearly positioned fiscal year 2027 as a “year of conscious customer growth replacement”. The core task is to scale up the big bets that have already been completed and rebuild new customer growth in the DIY tax and QuickBooks low-end markets over a period of one year.

But the challenges faced by the company cannot be overlooked. The 2027 revenue guide for fiscal year 2027 is $23.28 billion to $23.51 billion, and the diluted earnings per share guide is $20.12 to $20.36, reflecting the impact of TurboTax's slowing growth and lower customer unit price strategy. Additionally, new class-action lawsuits surrounding AI competition and Mailchimp's prospects, as well as layoffs in response to TurboTax's pricing pressure, have added uncertainty to the company's transformation narrative.

Panic comes before evidence, falsification of the “doomsday theory”?

Although Autodesk and Caijie's contrarian performance this week was more reflected in the company's specific catalysts (acquisition transactions, management confidence signals, valuation discounts) rather than confirmation of the overall market situation in the sector, it is still difficult to decide whether the SaaS sector is “making a comeback.”

But as time went on, more and more analysts thought the market was overreacting. Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of tech research firm Valoir, stated: “The 'end of SaaS” didn't come as Wall Streeters had anticipated. As AI adoption goes beyond the experimental phase, vendors are reporting that customers are beginning to accept AI.”

IDC research director Shannon Kalvar also said in an interview earlier: “The end of SaaS is overrated, but the statement of 'disintermediation' (disintermediation) is correct.”

In fact, the performance of these two software stocks this week at least shows that at a time when market panic is strongest, high-quality software assets with strong cash flow, clear AI strategic paths, and significant valuation discounts can still attract contrarian capital allocation.

Wall Street analysts generally agree that the impact of AI on SaaS is not “one-size-fits-all.” Gartner pointed out in a report released in July that AI agents will cause up to $234 billion in enterprise application software spending to face the risk of “proxy arbitrage” by 2030, accounting for about 20% of enterprise SaaS application expenses. George Brocklehurst, vice president of management at Gartner, said, “This is not so much a 'end' as a 'transformation.' SaaS will not be destroyed, but will come in a different form.”

Bank of America analyst Tal Liani's team has previously raised the target prices for 10 software stocks, including ServiceNow, Figma (FIG.US), and Snowflake (SNOW.US), on the grounds that “the software industry's overall valuation multiples are expanding, and market concerns about the disruptive impact of AI continue to ease.”

However, analysts also warned that even if the “apocalyptic theory” is falsified, the changes facing the SaaS industry are far from moderate. Analysts point out that if AI agents start to take over some of the work currently done by humans, “headless software” (headless software) will become the new normal — software will strip away the user interface and enable AI agents to directly access data. Safrus announced a shift to a “headless” model in April, and Workday (WDAY.US) and SAP (SAP.US) have also taken some of their own transformation measures.

For companies that charge per user, this trend poses a clear business model risk. IDC predicts that 70% of software vendors will abandon a pure pay-per-seat model by 2028. Gartner predicts that 40% of enterprise-grade SaaS will include an outcome-based pricing component by the end of 2026.

Brian Mulberry, investment management strategist at Zacks, said: “The real test for software stocks will be in the second half of 2027, when more data center capacity will likely make AI coding a greater threat to software companies.”