The last two weeks have been a doozy for the software industry, as the historic sell-off of SaaS shares in early February reignited an ongoing concern in revenue operations (RevOps): If AI can replace more human work, does a seat‑based revenue technology (revtech) stack still make sense? The approximately $2 trillion sell-off doesn’t signal a collapse of the revtech sector or your tech stack. But it does reflect investor uncertainty about how AI will shape long-term growth, suggesting that seat-based total addressable market assumptions may be inflated.
For RevOps leaders, the challenge isn’t predicting whether the various narratives on what the future will look like are right or wrong — it’s avoiding reactive decisions based on incomplete signals. The picture is complex, and the impact of AI is uneven and nonlinear, requiring buyers to build optionality into tech stack design and contracts to ensure that their stack can perform under a range of AI scenarios.
The Two Competing Simplistic Narratives In The Market Right Now
Narrative A: AI replacement is accelerating. Advocates of this scenario argue that AI is increasingly taking over tasks, such as prospecting, research, drafting emails, summarising calls, and managing follow-ups. According to this view, fewer sales development representatives and account executives are needed to hit targets, boosting revenue per rep. As seat-based pricing becomes less relevant, technology growth tied to headcount slows. Buyers consolidate tools, pricing shifts toward usage or outcomes, and vendors reliant on seat expansion face pressure. This is the narrative currently driving much of investor sentiment.
Narrative B: AI augments productivity rather than replaces people. In this scenario, AI improves efficiency by automating tasks and enhancing communication while human skills such as trust and judgement remain critical in complex sales. Productivity rises, revenue targets increase, and headcount remains relatively stable, supporting per-seat pricing models. While productivity gains are clear, significant workforce reductions directly attributable to AI haven’t materialised. Forrester estimates that AI will automate roughly 6% of jobs by 2030, with most impact coming from augmentation rather than replacement.
The Reality Is More Complex
In practice, these two narratives aren’t mutually exclusive, and many RevOps leaders are already operating across both at the same time. It’s important to bear in mind that:
The impact of AI is uneven. AI’s effects vary significantly by segment, sales motion, and deal complexity. Most organisations run enterprise, small and midsize business, product-led growth, and transactional motions in parallel, and AI affects each differently. In lower-complexity, high-volume motions, and particularly at the bottom of prospect segmentation, companies are experimenting with substituting AI for human effort by automating outreach, qualification, and follow-up at scale. In contrast, for complex, multi-stakeholder sales, AI primarily augments human sellers by improving preparation, coaching, and execution rather than replacing them outright.
The impact is not linear. The “AI replacement” narrative often overlooks real-world variability: While AI may reduce human involvement in certain tasks, it rarely leads to linear cost reductions across revenue teams. Fewer people can mean higher expectations per seller, increased reliance on automation, and greater investment in workflow and data systems. Streamlining one area with AI often increases complexity elsewhere, particularly in forecasting, attribution, enablement, and performance management.
What It Means For RevOps
The result isn’t a single future for revenue teams and their tech stacks but a distribution of outcomes that coexist within the same company, creating uneven pressure on pricing models, tooling choices, and how value is measured across the revtech stack. Declining seat counts don’t necessarily signal declining revtech value; they may instead expose which tools scale with output and which were only ever justified by headcount growth.
A wiser response is not to assume that any one narrative is correct but to instead build optionality into your stack and contracts. For RevOps leaders, optionality has very concrete implications and shows up less in strategy decks than in day‑to‑day buying and contracting decisions. For example, it may mean:
Avoiding long‑term seat minimums that assume linear headcount growth.
Prioritising vendors that decouple pricing from named users.
Preserving access to raw data so intelligence can be re-layered if tools change.
Favouring modular capabilities over tightly bundled platforms that are difficult to unwind.
Optionality also means resisting premature consolidation driven by hype alone. Locking into a single platform before AI capabilities stabilise can reduce, rather than increase, strategic flexibility. In an uncertain market, the goal isn’t to freeze decision‑making but to structure stacks and contracts so that future changes in productivity, headcount, or sales motion don’t force expensive rewrites of your revenue infrastructure.
A More Balanced Take On The SaaS “Reset”
You don’t need to predict exactly how AI will reshape the future. Focus instead on ensuring that your technology stack is robust enough to perform under any scenario. Expect productivity to rise without automatically assuming a collapse in headcount. Design your stack with flexibility, negotiate thoughtfully, and consistently monitor output to ensure measurable results.
If automation leads to employee replacement in parts of your business, your tools should scale alongside increased output. If employees continue to play a central role, your tools must tangibly enhance their effectiveness. AI won’t eat your revtech stack, but it will expose which parts were never pulling their weight.
If you’re navigating executive pressure around AI, headcount, and cost assumptions, or need help grounding those conversations in operational reality, schedule a call with us to receive tailored advice for your team and plan to join us at B2B Summit North America.
