'SaaS Isn't Coming Back' — Lateral's de Silva Argues Agents Become the User, Killing Per-Seat; Cites $300B Single-Session Wipeout and McKinsey's $6T Opportunity

Crunchbase News·medium signal

In a June 22 Crunchbase News piece, Lateral's Richard de Silva argues the core SaaS unit economics are breaking because agents — not humans — are becoming the 'user' through headless models, dissolving per-seat pricing. He points to a ~$300B single-session market wipeout in January 2026 as a signal of the model's decline and frames AI-native vertical platforms as competing for labor, compliance, and risk budgets (a McKinsey-cited ~$6T productivity pool) rather than software budgets. The defensible plays: vertical specialists with proprietary data, outcome/performance pricing (e.g., per contract drafted), and deliberate human-in-the-loop services.