Software used to answer “how do I do this?” Agents make the question fade. Coding got deskilled, SaaS moats thinned, now agents do the work itself.
The story
*AI tells*: tidy phase ladder; same paragraph rhythm; generic pivots; abstract nouns; neat link pitch.
🟢 The Software Value Chain Is Cracking
I’m watching a weird little thing happen. Software used to answer, “how do I do this?” Agents are making the question fade. Yay.
First, coding got deskilled. Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code read issues, write code, run tests, and open pull requests. The human moved from typing every line to naming the result, then asking, “does this work well enough?”
Next, the SaaS moat got thinner. Project trackers, form builders, CRMs, internal dashboards – many sold “this is hard to build.” When anyone can spin up a custom version in an afternoon, paying per seat for the generic one starts feeling silly. TechCrunch says agents are changing build-vs-buy talks. TechTarget says full extinction is unlikely, but enterprises are changing how they touch SaaS for keeps.
Then agents started doing the work, not building tools for it. Operator clicks through its own browser. Claude’s computer-use beta moves a cursor like a person. Perplexity’s assistant takes actions across apps. We moved from “tool you operate” to “agent you instruct.” Tiny wording change. Big floor banana.
This is the founder part. If an agent can produce the outcome, an app helping a human produce the outcome is a middleman. Instead of opening a spreadsheet, writing formulas, and tagging categories, you ask an agent to track expenses and flag weird stuff each month. The app isn’t the product. The outcome is.
I’m not thinking more apps. I’m thinking fewer interfaces, seats, dashboards, and more direct delegation.
I wrote more on this in “The Extinction of Software.” Worth reading if you’re building right now.
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