Introduction: when the market tells you your company is worth zero
Imagine: you have $1.3 billion in annual revenue, a record-high retention rate, positive free cash flow — and yet the company’s market capitalization has fallen to $3.9 billion. The market is effectively telling you: “Your business is worth zero.”
That is exactly the situation Eran Zinman, co-CEO monday.com, found himself in when he gave an interview to Harry Stebbings. And instead of going on the defensive, he announced the largest pivot in the company’s history — and explained why he believes the current moment is “the biggest opportunity in the history of software.”
This article is a detailed breakdown of his arguments: about the “doomsday scenarios” for SaaS, about AI agents as the new work interface, and about why software TAM will grow 100x.
Five SaaS death scenarios — and why they do not work the way they seem to
Zinman lists five popular “apocalyptic” narratives around SaaS companies in the AI era. Let’s examine each one.
1. Vibe coding: people will write their own software
On the American CNBC channel, a journalist live on air “built her own Monday” in a few hours using AI tools. monday.com shares immediately dropped.
What Zinman says:
“There is a huge difference between creating a user interface and building real software that works across the entire organization with the depth and functionality built into it.”
Creating an interface is easy. Maintaining it, scaling it, adapting it for thousands of users, integrating it with other systems — that is a completely different story. If vibe coding really killed business tools, then nobody would be investing in startups. But Harvey, Ramp, Legora — these are all companies that have raised billions, despite the fact that in theory they could be “built in an evening.”
Conclusion: the impact of vibe coding is marginal, especially in enterprise. This is the weakest of the five scenarios.
2. OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini will take over the entire corporate market
The logic is simple: if model companies give you the “brains” and build products on top of them — why do you need separate software?
Zinman’s answer: the historical precedent of AWS
When Amazon launched AWS, everyone said: Amazon will capture the entire enterprise market. What happened in reality? A boom in SaaS companiesbuilt on top of AWS emerged. Infrastructure lowered the barrier to entry and multiplied the number of products.
“I’m not saying Anthropic or OpenAI can’t build enterprise products. I’m saying the opportunity to be the infrastructure layer for the LLM industry is so enormous that going into enterprise sales is a completely different business.”
Enterprise sales is a different sales process, a different cycle, a different culture. No ChatGPT in its current form provides that.
3. Agents will turn SaaS into databases
This is the most dangerous scenario — and Zinman acknowledges it directly: “That is true. That’s why this is difficult.”
For 25 years, software has remained fundamentally unchanged: database, analytics, automation. And 90% of the work was done outside the tool. A salesperson did not call from within the CRM. A project manager did not think inside Monday.
But with AI, the equation flips: “AI can potentially do 70–80% of the work, not 10–20% as before. Nobody will want to buy software that does not do most of the work for them.”
The key question: who can adapt? That is exactly what the market is pricing right now. Investors are not saying “SaaS is dead.” They are saying: “We do not know which players will be able to transform.”
monday.com’s answer: a platform for agents and people
Instead of defending the old model, Zinman announced the biggest pivot in the company’s history:
- Was: monday.com = task and project tracker
- Will become: a platform for collaboration between people and AI agents
What this means in practice
- Users build agents directly inside Monday
- Agents do the work — research, calls, lead qualification, support
- People review, guide and collaborate with agents
- Boards and dashboards move into the background — agents move to the foreground
“If you have not built an agent in Monday, you are not using the product correctly. This is a huge shift.”
Real cases: AI has already replaced the SDR team
This is not just a strategic narrative. Zinman gave specific examples of transformation within monday.com itself.
SDR team → agents
Was: ~100 SDRs handled incoming leads, average response time — 24 hours. Became: 100% of lead handling is done by agents, response time — 3 minutes.
- Conversion increased ↑
- Call connect rate increased ↑
- The number of meetings booked with AEs increased ↑
- Agents speak all languages, available 24/7
Customer support and development
Customer support has been fully moved to AI. All engineers use Claude Code and Cursor — developer productivity has increased.
The shift to consumption: the end of the seats era
In a world where company headcount is shrinking because of automation, selling “seats” loses its meaning. monday.com is moving toward a hybrid model, and in the future — toward 100% consumption.
“Ultimately, I think it will be fully consumption-based. First hybrid, then 100%.”
This is not just a pricing change. It is a change in the value proposition: you pay not for access, but for results.
TAM x100: why the future of SaaS is enormous
Right now, a typical company spends ~7–8% of its budget on software and 60–70% on headcount. In the world of agentic AI, that ratio will begin to shift: companies will be happy to pay more for software because it will allow them not to hire people.
“Software TAM will grow 100x compared to what it is today.”
This changes the frame: investors see a threat, Zinman sees an opportunity.
The impact of AI on SEO and customer acquisition
One unexpected effect is a blow to the Google acquisition channel. Google AI Mode reduced CTR on commercial queries. According to Zinman, this affected about 10% of new ARR of monday.com — mostly transactional SMB deals. The remaining 70+ acquisition channels were not affected.
Three big bets by monday.com
- Horizontal platform: agents + people = a new way of working for the entire company
- CRM: built from scratch as a 100% agentic solution
- Service: AI-native service desk
"I think the playing field has been leveled. Salesforce and ServiceNow dominate now — but who can adapt?"
Personal: how to lead a company when the stock is falling
Zinman speaks candidly about the psychological strain: "Some days I feel like I was hit by a truck, struck by a plane, and grilled. And it's only 11 a.m. right now."
After the stock fell to $70 (valuation of about $3.7 billion with $1.5 billion in cash and $1.3+ billion in ARR), he felt not panic but relief:
"The market is telling me the company is worth zero. Okay. Then we need to build. To hell with it — we're going all in."
Conclusions: what this means for business
If you use SaaS tools, ask vendors how they are embedding agents into the product. Move to consumption-based pricing. Prepare for 70–80% of routine work to be handled by agents.
If you are building a product, "adding AI" is not enough. You need to rethink value. Consumption is stronger than Seats.
If you are an investor, public companies are undervalued not because the business is bad, but because the market does not know which of them can transform. The one that can will take off.
FAQ
What is the SaaS apocalypse?
The term describes investors' concerns that artificial intelligence will make traditional software unnecessary: people will write their own software through vibe coding, model companies will capture the enterprise market, and agents will turn SaaS platforms into simple databases.
How is monday.com responding to the AI threat?
The company announced a major pivot: monday.com is transforming from a task tracker into a platform for collaboration between people and AI agents. Agents are built and launched directly inside the product, and value is shifting from storing data to doing work.
Will AI completely replace employees in companies?
According to Zinman, no, at least not in the near term. Agentic AI will work alongside people: it will handle routine tasks, while people will direct, verify, and make decisions. The full transition will take years.
What is a consumption-based model in SaaS?
It is usage-based payment instead of a fixed fee for "seats". With automation and headcount reduction, it is more advantageous: the company pays for the actual amount of work performed by agents, not for the number of users.
Will the software market grow with the arrival of AI?
Zinman believes that TAM will grow 100x: companies will spend more on software, replacing personnel costs with it. Productivity is the main reason for growth in tech spend.