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[return to "AI agents are starting to eat SaaS"]
1. jwr+rQ[view] [source] 2025-12-15 08:17:55
>>jnord+(OP)
I am the founder of a niche SaaS (https://partsbox.com/ — software for managing electronic parts inventory and production). While I am somewhat worried about AI capabilities, I'm not losing too much sleep over it.

The worry is that customers who do not realize the full depth of the problem will implement their own app using AI. But that happens today, too: people use spreadsheets to manage their electronic parts (please don't) and BOMs (bills of materials). The spreadsheet is my biggest competitor.

I've been designing and building the software for 10 years now and most of the difficulty and complexity is not in the code. Coding is the last part, and the easiest one. The real value is in understanding the world (the processes involved) and modeling it in a way that cuts a good compromise between ease of use and complexity.

Sadly, as I found out, once you spend a lot of time thinking and come up with a model, copycats will clone that (as well as they can, but superficially it will look similar).

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2. TeMPOr+H91[view] [source] 2025-12-15 11:05:28
>>jwr+rQ
The problem IMO is simpler.

You have a product, which sits between your users and what your users want. That product has an UI for users to operate. Many (most, I imagine) users would prefer to hire an assistant to operate that UI for them, since UI is not the actual value your service provides. Now, s/assistant/AI agent/ and you can see that your product turns into a tool call.

So the simpler problem is that your product now becomes merely a tool call for AI agents. That's what users want. Many SaaS companies won't like that, because it removes their advertising channel and commoditizes their product.

It's the same reason why API access to SaaS is usually restricted or not available for the users except biggest customers. LLMs defeat that by turning the entire human experience into an API, without explicit coding.

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3. mjr00+HV1[view] [source] 2025-12-15 15:39:00
>>TeMPOr+H91
> So the simpler problem is that your product now becomes merely a tool call for AI agents. That's what users want.

This is a big assumption, and not one I've seen in product testing. Open-ended human language is not a good interface for highly detailed technical work, at least not with the current state of LLMs.

> It's the same reason why API access to SaaS is usually restricted or not available for the users except biggest customers.

I don't... think this is true? Of the top of my head, aside from cloud providers like AWS/GCP/Azure which obviously provide APIs: Salesforce, Hubspot, Jira all provide APIs either alongside basic plans or as a small upsell. Certainly not just for the biggest customers. You're probably thinking of social media where Twitter/Reddit/FB/etc don't really give API access, but those aren't really B2B SaaS products.

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