The panic in the market is real. Software stocks down 30% since January. But the conclusion that AI kills all software is lazy thinking. What AI actually does is expose which software was worth paying for and which was just expensive enough to tolerate.
I see three categories emerging.
Infrastructure stays. And grows.
Nobody is going to vibe-code a database. Or a vector store. Or an authentication layer. Companies like Weaviate and Supabase are in the best position they've ever been in. The more people build, the more infrastructure they need. Every new AI project, every agent, every internal tool someone spins up in an afternoon needs somewhere to store data, somewhere to run, somewhere to authenticate. Infrastructure doesn't get disrupted by more building. It benefits from it.
Simple tools get repriced.
There's a whole category of SaaS that charges 50 euros per month for something that isn't particularly complex. A form builder. A scheduling tool. A basic dashboard. If the price is low enough, nobody bothers replacing it. But if you're charging serious money for something relatively simple, your customers now have an alternative. They can build it themselves in a weekend. The price has to match the complexity. A lot of SaaS is about to discover their pricing assumed a world where building was hard.
Complex, critical software gets stronger.
This is the category where trust matters. Where uptime matters. Where certifications matter. Where you need to prove to an auditor that everything works as promised. Nobody is going to vibe-code their compliance platform. Nobody is going to let an intern build the system that handles their client data. The more noise there is in the market, the more people gravitate toward software they can trust. Brand, process depth, and real certifications become the moat.
The software industry isn't shrinking. It's splitting. Infrastructure grows because everyone is building more. Simple tools get cheaper because building got easier. And complex, trusted software becomes more valuable because in a world where anyone can ship an app, the question shifts from "can you build it" to "should I trust it."
If you're building software right now, ask yourself: which category are you in?