AIWA "The One Thing" #12: Software Isn't Dead. It's Reinventing. Meet Air.

The SaaS-apocalypse captures the headlines.

I get it but the companies pulling enterprise software forward aren't waiting for the SaaS debate to settle.

They're already building the next system of record.

*Tweet from The Ichanist above featuring curated slides from Thoma Bravo investor deck; Other charts above / bellow are from "Agentic AI and the Future of Enterprise Software" by Vista Equity Partners, Ashley MacNeill + Monti Saroya.

Air is most definitely one of those companies. A modern system of record for the creative process.

Shane Hegde, co-Founder + CEO of Air, joined me on my AI with Alec podcast E28 for an outstanding conversation.

1: Air is to the CMO what Salesforce is to the CRO.

Systems of Record are load bearing.

They’re not nice to have, they’re foundational as the single source of truth that enables the business to run.

2: Software isn’t being replaced, it’s evolving into something more powerful. Software 1.0 was a tool, 2.0? It learned how to use tools.

*AIWA TOT #5: Software isn’t dead. Quite the opposite. It learned how to use tools.

Air is what evolution looks like, purpose built for the creative process.

3: Creativity is magic. 75% of your creative team’s week is logistics, 25% is actually creating. What happens when Air enables you to invert that?

Air is one of those companies, embedding itself directly into the operational workflows CMOs have been running blind on.

As Shane pointed out, “AI will never replace creative work” because real deal creatives “use AI to help them scale their work, but deciding when, where, and how to deploy this technology remains defiantly human.”

4: The market opportunity is hard to ignore

The projections from Bain & Company include what could be the “largest addressable market expansion in software industry history.”

“Bain & Company projects $5 to $7 trillion in cumulative value flowing to the software and application layer by 2030 — a more than 4x expansion from current levels and potentially the largest addressable market expansion in software history.”

“Hardware and infrastructure have captured the first waves of AI-driven value creation, but software is projected to capture the third and largest.”

Just like he did in their full page ad in the The New York Times, Shane provided his cell phone number multiple times during our conversation.

Talk about conviction.

Humans + Machines. Never Humans vs Machines.