Ellison Dismisses SaaSpocalypse Fears, Says AI Will Finish Enterprise Apps

Larry Ellison has rejected the idea that artificial intelligence will spell the end of software and SaaS companies, saying AI will instead make business applications far more capable, according to TechRadar. The Oracle co-founder made the argument during a keynote at his company's annual AI World conference.

Ellison addressed fears that firms will simply use AI to build their own tools, pointing to examples such as Adobe's Creative Cloud being imitated by AI. He said companies will keep building applications, but those applications will look very different because of AI.

Rather than making existing products redundant, he argued, AI lets developers expand apps so they cover whole business processes and are tuned to the needs of specific industries. Even the strongest commercial enterprise software on the market today automates only part of what businesses require, he said.

He noted that many sectors still have to write their own extensions and buy third-party apps and connectors to fill the gaps. In his view, the software industry can now complete these applications for the first time by working through them one industry at a time.

Oracle's most visible effort is in healthcare, a field Ellison described on stage as complex and heavily regulated, with wide variation between regions that is hard for a single global vendor to handle.

He also expects AI to change how people use software. Instead of working through menus, dashboards and multi-step routines, users should be able to describe what they want and see it straight away, he said, adding that applications should need no training at all.

Other Oracle executives pointed in a similar direction. In separate interviews with TechRadar Pro, NetSuite Chief Operating Officer Brian Chess suggested business software could eventually become invisible to the people using it. That would shift value for vendors toward the data, logic and processes behind a product rather than its interface.

Oracle shares climbed roughly 14% to $144.14 over the two days of the event, though the price remains well below its late 2025 peak of $330.34.