"SaaS Apocalypse" Debunked? Autodesk (ADSK.US) and Intuit (INTU.US) Lead Growth Against the Trend as Wall Street Reprices the "AI Eating Software" Narrative

According to Zhitong Finance APP, against the backdrop of escalating conflict in Iran, global financial market turmoil, surging oil prices, and sustained geopolitical uncertainty, two enterprise-level software companies have bucked the trend with independent performances.

This week, Autodesk (ADSK.US) and Intuit (INTU.US) are set to record their strongest single-week gains in months, rallying sharply while the broader technology sector remains under pressure, signaling renewed market optimism for the growth outlook of the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) industry. As of Thursday’s close, Autodesk is up approximately 10% week-to-date and Intuit is up around 8%, both ranking among the top ten gainers in the Nasdaq 100 Index. In contrast, the Nasdaq 100 ETF—Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ.US), which tracks the index, slipped by about 0.3% over the same period.

This stark divergence once again brings focus to a core issue that has roiled Wall Street since February: the so-called “SaaS Doomsday”—the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally disrupt the enterprise software business model—is it merely alarmist, or a structural transformation already underway?

A Shift in Market Narrative: From “SaaS Doomsday” Panic to Selective Recovery

In February 2026, Anthropic announced new capabilities for Claude’s Cowork feature—accelerating contract review, NDA classification, and compliance workflows for corporate legal teams. With just four lines of descriptive text, the software sector collectively plunged, and the panic stretched from late February through March and April, evaporating tens of billions of dollars in market value.

The market’s concern was that AI agents would reduce enterprise workforce needs, thereby shrinking seat-based SaaS subscriptions. “Ambiance programming” would enable companies to use natural language to create internal tools, further weakening the value proposition of dedicated software. Driven by this logic, software stocks saw a sharp sell-off at the start of the year, with shares of Salesforce (CRM.US), Adobe (ADBE.US), Intuit, ServiceNow (NOW.US), and other major software firms falling 25% to 30% within weeks.

However, as the year progressed to the second half, the narrative significantly reversed. Cybersecurity stocks including Okta (OKTA.US) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW.US) rebounded to all-time highs, and global SaaS leader Salesforce has bounced nearly 50% from its June lows. The catalyst for this rally came from Salesforce’s Q2 FY2027 earnings report on August 26: the company disclosed that current remaining performance obligations (cRPO) hit $33.5 billion, up 14% year over year, and annual recurring revenue from Agentforce exceeded $1.5 billion, up 240% year over year.

Following the earnings release, Salesforce’s share price surged over 22% in a single day, its largest single-day gain in six years. KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader summed up at the time: “We are all gradually realizing that this industry will be more resilient than expected.” Jefferies analyst Brent Thill stated in a report that we are witnessing the “revenge of the software geeks,” believing the threat of AI replacement is grossly overstated.

Autodesk: Acquisition Deal Triggers Revaluation of Sector Valuations

For Autodesk, the core driver of this round of gains comes from an industry-defining M&A transaction. On October 5, French industrial giant Schneider Electric SE announced the acquisition of industrial software manufacturer PTC Inc. in an all-cash deal worth approximately $22.6 billion, or $205 per share—a 42.3% premium to PTC’s previous closing price. The deal values PTC at about $23.7 billion in enterprise value, making it the largest acquisition in Schneider Electric’s history.

Schneider Electric CEO Olivier Blum said during the investor call that PTC’s engineering and design data will strengthen Schneider’s ability to deploy AI in clients’ industrial operations. The transaction, expected to close in Q3 2027, will be financed through a combination of equity and new debt, with Schneider expecting annual cost synergies of about €250 million and revenue synergies of about €800 million after the third year.

For Autodesk, the direct significance of this transaction lies in its anchoring effect on the valuation of the engineering and industrial software sector as a whole. With PTC being acquired at a 42.3% premium, investors are compelled to reassess the reasonable valuation ranges for companies with similar business characteristics in this space. Autodesk, with significant business overlap with PTC in architecture, engineering, construction (AECO), and manufacturing digitization, thus finds its “undervalued” reputation further substantiated.

Meanwhile, Autodesk’s operating data also provides support. Its earnings released in August showed Q2 FY revenue growing 16.1% year-over-year to $2.05 billion, beating market expectations of $2.01 billion; non-GAAP EPS was $3.30, above expectations of $3.12. CFO Janesh Moorjani raised the FY2027 billings outlook to $8.575–8.65 billion, revenue guidance to $8.295–8.345 billion, and kept the non-GAAP operating margin forecast at about 39% during the earnings call.

On the AI strategy front, Autodesk is placing “project intelligence” at the core. CEO Andrew Anagnost described this concept as a continuous flow of data and context from design to construction or manufacturing, extending to operations. The company’s integration of MaintainX is seen as a key step towards closing this loop—by introducing real asset performance data back into design and manufacturing, it strengthens the foundation of AI training data. Additionally, Autodesk’s Fusion platform AI capabilities are progressing well, with growing customer engagement with Assistant and other AI features, and continued growth in user numbers, annual contract value, revenue, and multi-seat purchases.

Intuit: Valuation Recovery and Management Confidence Signal

Intuit’s rally is set against a backdrop of a phase recovery in market sentiment. In September, management publicly stated that there was a “significant mismatch” between the then stock price and the company’s intrinsic value. Subsequently, the founder and senior management announced the termination of a previously scheduled share sale plan, further reinforcing confidence in the company’s outlook. This statement became an important anchor point for market confidence.

Intuit’s Q4 earnings report at the end of August also showed strong performance: revenue reached $4.35 billion, and adjusted EPS was $4.03, both beating expectations. However, the market focused mainly on the FY2027 guidance—management projected revenue growth would slow to 9%–10%, down from 14% the previous year, which led to a sharp sell-off.

During the period of pressured share prices, Intuit continued to roll out large shareholder return plans. By the end of FY2026, the company had completed buybacks of about 31.07 million shares, totaling around $14.72 billion, and raised the quarterly dividend to $1.38 per share. Management explicitly designated FY2027 as a “conscious customer growth reset year,” with the core task to scale proven bets and rebuild new customer growth in the DIY tax and QuickBooks low-end market within one year.

However, the challenges facing Intuit remain notable. Its FY2027 revenue guidance is $23.28–23.51 billion, and diluted EPS guidance at $20.12–20.36, reflecting slowing TurboTax growth and a low average customer pricing strategy. In addition, new collective litigation regarding AI competition and Mailchimp prospects, as well as layoffs to counter TurboTax pricing pressure, add further uncertainty to the company’s transformation narrative.

Panic Precedes Evidence—The Falsification of the “Doomsday Theory”?

Although the contrarian performances of Autodesk and Intuit this week are largely driven by company-specific catalysts (acquisition deals, management confidence signals, valuation discounts) rather than confirmation of a broad sector rally, it’s still hard to conclude whether SaaS as a sector is truly making a comeback.

However, as time passes, more analysts believe the market overreacted. Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of technology research firm Valoir, noted: “The ‘SaaS doomsday’ hasn’t come as Wall Street feared. As AI adoption moves beyond the experimental stage, vendors are reporting customers are beginning to accept AI.”

IDC Research Director Shannon Kalvar previously stated in an interview, “The SaaS doomsday is overstated, but ‘disintermediation’ is real.”

Indeed, the performance of these two software stocks this week at least indicates that at the height of market panic, high-quality software assets with strong cash flow, clear AI strategy paths, and significant valuation discounts can still attract contrarian allocations.

Wall Street analysts generally believe that AI’s impact on SaaS isn’t “one-size-fits-all.” Gartner noted in a July report that by 2030, AI agents could put up to $234 billion of enterprise application software spending—about 20% of enterprise SaaS spend—at risk of “agent arbitrage.” Gartner VP George Brocklehurst said: “It’s less of a ‘doomsday’ and more of a ‘metamorphosis.’ SaaS won’t be destroyed, but will take new forms.”

Bank of America analyst Tal Liani’s team has since raised target prices for ten software stocks including ServiceNow, Figma (FIG.US), and Snowflake (SNOW.US), citing “overall multiple expansion in the software sector and easing concerns about AI’s disruptive impact.”

However, analysts warn that even if the “doomsday theory” is disproved, changes facing the SaaS industry will be far from mild. Analysts pointed out that if AI agents start taking over some tasks currently done by humans, “headless software” will become the new norm—software will decouple from user interfaces, allowing AI agents direct access to data. Salesforce announced in April that it was transitioning to a “headless” model; Workday (WDAY.US) and SAP (SAP.US) have taken partial steps in this direction as well.

For companies charging per user, this trend presents an explicit business model risk. IDC forecasts that by 2028, 70% of software vendors will abandon pure seat-based pricing models. Gartner expects that by the end of 2026, 40% of enterprise-level SaaS will include outcome-based pricing components.

Zacks Investment Management strategist Brian Mulberry said: “The real test for software stocks will come in the second half of 2027, when more datacenter capacity may allow AI coding to pose greater threat to software companies.”