The future is software that adapts to your business

The deal was simple: you rent a standard package as an online service, known as software as a service (SaaS), and adapt the way you work to it. That brought a lot, but also a lot of separate tools. A typical larger company now runs hundreds of apps, many of them barely used, and only a few of them talking to each other.

Those are figures from mostly larger organizations, but you’ll recognize the pattern in any business: a calendar here, an accounting package there, a spreadsheet in between, and people retyping data from one screen into another.

That is turning around. In late 2024, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on the BG2 podcast that the very idea of separate business applications could collapse in the age of AI agents. In his view, the logic moves to an AI layer that updates several databases on its own: “all the logic will be in the AI tier”3CX Today, 2024Microsoft CEO: AI Agents Will Transform SaaS as We Know ItOpen the source. Since then, the headlines have been full of the SaaSpocalypse. But look past the headlines and you don’t see an end. You see a new way of working.

Gartner expects $1.47 trillion to be spent on software worldwide in 2026, 15.5% more than in 20254Gartner, 2026Gartner Forecasts Worldwide IT Spending to Grow 14.2% in 2026, Totaling $6.37 TrillionOpen the source. According to IDC, the enterprise application market is approaching $700 billion, with growth of around 13% in the first half of 2026, its third year in a row of double-digit growth5IDC, 2026SaaSpocalypse: Catchy Title, Flawed PremiseOpen the source. That’s not a market that’s collapsing.

Deloitte calls the death-of-SaaS story premature. Agents will replace parts of business software for some applications, Deloitte says, but it will take at least five years6Deloitte Insights, TMT Predictions 2026, 2025SaaS meets AI agents: Transforming budgets, customer experience, and workforce dynamicsOpen the source. Many businesses will combine both rather than choose, says Ayo Odusote, Deloitte’s software and platforms leader7CIO, 2026SaaS isn't dead, the market is just becoming more hybridOpen the source.

Gartner reaches the same conclusion: most organizations will enhance their core applications with AI agents, not replace them. By 2030, no more than 30% of the functionality of standard software will be replaced by custom AI solutions8Gartner (report shared by Rimini Street), 2026Enterprise Applications 2030: How to Respond to the SaaS-pocalypseOpen the source. Your accounting package, your payment provider and your mailbox aren’t going anywhere.

What does change is the form. According to Gartner, up to $234 billion of spending on business applications is at risk from AI agents by 2030, around 20% of what companies spend on those SaaS applications. Software priced per user is under the most pressure. That’s why Gartner calls it “less an apocalypse and more of a metamorphosis”9Gartner, 2026Gartner Says $234 Billion in Enterprise Application Software Spend Is at Risk from Agentic AIOpen the source.

The roles are flipping. Where you used to adapt to the software, the software is increasingly adapting to your business. Three developments make that possible.

Gartner expects 40% of enterprise applications to work with task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% in 2025. By 2028, according to Gartner, a third of software use will run through such an agent as the front end, and you’ll reach a goal without opening each app separately10Gartner, 2025Gartner Predicts 40% of Enterprise Apps Will Feature Task-Specific AI Agents by 2026, Up from Less Than 5% in 2025Open the source. You ask for what you want to know or get done, and the software figures it out.

Not long ago, custom software was something for large companies: a project of €10,000 or more was nothing unusual. That has changed. With a proven framework, ready-made building blocks for logins, payments and integrations, and the experience to know what to build, the same portal or integration now costs a fraction of that. At Forwarddd, a customer portal starts at €1,450 one-off.

Businesses are choosing differently too. In McKinsey’s 2026 survey, 32% of organizations said they had decided against buying a software product or feature because they could build it instead. Among the businesses getting the most out of AI, it was nearly half11McKinsey & Company, 2026The state of AI in 2026: On the road to ROIOpen the source. Large companies do that with a development team of their own. A small business doesn’t have one, and doesn’t need one: a partner who builds and maintains it for you gives you the same advantage, without the payroll.

If everyone has the same standard tools, nobody stands out because of those tools. According to McKinsey, the advantage in software is shifting from features to proprietary data, and one-size-fits-all applications are increasingly being replaced by applications tailored to the business12McKinsey & Company, 2025The AI-centric imperative: Navigating the next software frontierOpen the source. What sets you apart is your customers, your prices and the way you work. None of that fits in a standard package.

You don’t have to throw everything out. The new way of working has three layers, exactly as Gartner advises: keep what works, and enhance it where the difference is made8Gartner (report shared by Rimini Street), 2026Enterprise Applications 2030: How to Respond to the SaaS-pocalypseOpen the source. It’s how we build at Forwarddd too.

Take a franchise location of a fries chain. The till, Exact Online and the franchise’s Google Sheet all stayed; that’s the standard layer. Around them came a small portal that pulls in the till figures every morning and gets forwarded invoices ready in Exact. That’s the custom part. And because everything is connected, the owner simply asks the portal what last week’s revenue was.

It doesn’t go well by itself. Gartner expects more than 40% of AI agent projects to be canceled by the end of 2027, because of high costs, unclear value or poor control of the risks13Gartner, 2025Gartner Predicts Over 40% of Agentic AI Projects Will Be Canceled by End of 2027Open the source. And McKinsey sees that faster coding alone rarely shows up in revenue or profit: that only happens when the way of working changes with it12McKinsey & Company, 2025The AI-centric imperative: Navigating the next software frontierOpen the source.

Waiting doesn’t solve that. Start small and concrete, with a process you feel every day, and redesign the work itself instead of just adding a tool next to it.

The era of businesses adapting to their software is coming to an end. The new way of working is software that adapts to the business: standard where it can be, custom where it counts, and everything connected. Start now, and you take the retyping out of the business and lay the foundation AI can actually work with.

What that looks like in practice, with examples from hospitality, staffing, rentals and webshops, is in the second part of this series: Why modern businesses need connected digital systems.