Will AI kill software?

Yes (to a degree).

I've always dreamt of running my own software company, something akin to Panic, 37Signals, Beagle Bros (from back in the day). Recently, I've been struggling a with the thought that my dream is no longer possible (there's a difference between realistic and possible) thanks to AI.

On the news you'll constantly find articles heralding the death of SaaS. Why pay a third-party software vendor if you can have a few employees internally replicate their product with your exact business needs? No legal or IT reviews, no subscriptions, no demos or sales calls, no trusting data to another company. Sounds like an easy choice.

If SaaS is out, then what about desktop software? Platforms like “Computer” (stupid name) from Perplexity threaten to replace computing as a whole with a LLM conversation. Heck, in my day to day nearly everyone is using Claude over traditional tools. Need a document? Forget Excel or Word, Claude can do it. Design mockups? Figma and Sketch are old-news, Claude can mock something up. Need a banner graphic or chart? Who uses Photoshop when there’s Claude.

And that’s where my dreams lay, seemingly crushed by the death of SaaS and desktop software. But...I don’t think that’s true. You see, my personal experience and the news are based on one environment: corporate.

I do believe that B2B SaaS and software is dead. Why? Because nobody wants to use it in the first place. Corporate software does not bring you joy. It’s sterile, boring and compliant. Your mindset is not in a position of joy. You don’t want to make that presentation or spreadsheet, you have to otherwise your family starves. If you’re given the opportunity for “someone else” (aka an LLM) to do your bidding, you’ll take it. You never truly cared about the output in the first place, so let Perplexity/Claude/Gemini/etc take the wheel.

Here’s the thing though, when you clock out for the day, the software you interact with can instill joy. Suddenly you’re using Acorn to support your photography hobby. You fire up ia Writer to update your blog (what I’m typing with right now). You use Nova to build the website for your cycling club. Personal software has the opportunity to be fun.

Creative workflows are meaningful, exciting and joyful. The process is part of the art, not something that can outsourced to an LLM. Sure, “business creative” can be handled by Claude. Who gives a shit how your “Black Friday Sale” poster was made, you sure as hell don’t. “Human creative” on the other hand is yours, it’s personal, it’s meaningful.

“Human creative” is what will save software. High quality tools that instill joy by supporting the creative processes that make life meaningful.

And honestly? Good riddance to “business creative”. I’m all for the death of corporate software.