Theses›Software & applications

Software & applications

Where software buyers spend as AI changes what a program is.

  • 12 theses
  • 3 bull
  • 7 bear
Early2Open105Closing839Shut46711Not dated112 Early2Open105Closing839Shut46711Not dated112
Fig. 1Where the bets sit: windows from Early to Shut, left to right; each plot's area is the market's size by 2035. A double outline is a bull call, a single one a bear call, a dashed one a thesis with no call written yet. Washed: AI eats SaaS, the largest bull call. 1 not yet sized are drawn small.
The marketsnumbered as the plan
  1. 1Physics AI
    • Bull
    • Not dated
    • $39B
    • Support 86
     Physics-AI value accrues to vertical specialists holding cross-customer data rights, not to horizontal platforms, by 2030
  2. 2Autonomous remediation
    • Bear
    • Early
    • $43B
    • Support 78
     Fixing becomes the bottleneck once AI makes finding free, and the patch-writing agent is the product
  3. 3Non-human identity and secrets
    • Bear
    • Closing
    • $38B
    • Support 78
     The keys software holds become the main way in, and the platforms that already own identity absorb the fix
  4. 4Cyber insurance repricing
    • Bear
    • Shut
    • $35B
    • Support 78
     Cheap attacks reach the economy through insurance first: loss ratios rise while prices still fall, so the market turns hard and the tail goes uninsured
  5. 5Software supply-chain integrity
    • Bear
    • Open
    • $31B
    • Support 78
     Proving the code you run is the code that was built becomes a required control, and the code hosts give most of it away
  6. 6Agentic payment rails
    • Shut
    • $29B
    • Support 74
     A standalone neutral netting/clearing layer for agent micro-payments does NOT survive as an independent business; netting is absorbed by the rails and card networks by 2027 (contested: the original bet has inverted)
  7. 7Proof of humanhood
    • Bear
    • Shut
    • $1.8B
    • Support 74
     Proof of humanhood has the forcing function agent identity lacks, and still is not a hardware market
  8. 8AI value capture moves downwards
    • Bull
    • Closing
    • $538B
    • Support 62
     The AI application/agent software layer is where AI revenue SHOWS UP but not where it is KEPT — value behaves as an ingredient that flows to whoever already owns the data, distribution and workflow (incumbent SaaS re-rating on AI-attach) plus…
  9. 9AI security
    • Bear
    • Closing
    • $27B
    • Support 54
     The attackers' side wins the market and the street already knows it: the one venture opening, autonomous offence, is priced above $1B with incumbents on the cap table.
  10. 10AI eats SaaS
    • Bull
    • Open
    • $447B
    • Support 51
     Agentic AI decouples software value from seat count — flattening-to-shrinking per-seat revenue in workflow-automatable categories (0-3% CAGR) while the dollar TAM grows only ~8-10% — and in the ~$210B of exposed spend, AI-native entrants OWN new categories worth a ~$55-65B…
  11. 11Agent identity
    • Bear
    • Shut
    • $0M
    • Support 49
     Agent identity (KYA) is repeatedly named as the layer where durable value pools in agentic payments.
  12. 12The convergence of AI agents and commerce
    • Not dated
     AI agents transacting on behalf of users (discovery, negotiation, payment, settlement) is an undervalued convergence, with a crypto/stablecoin crossover for agent-to-agent settlement.