Почему ИИ не убьёт SaaS: Dell Technologies Capital о будущем стартапов

Daniel Docter, managing director of Dell Technologies Capital — Dell Corporation's venture arm — said in an interview with Crunchbase News that artificial intelligence is reshaping the SaaS market but is not driving its business model to extinction, and that the outcome of the AI startup race will ultimately be decided not by model quality but by distribution.

Why AI Won't Kill SaaS

Daniel Docter disagrees with the popular thesis that artificial intelligence will destroy the SaaS model — subscription-based software. In his view, AI is changing how such software is built, filled with features, and sold, but the subscription model itself — recurring revenue, cloud delivery, vendor-side updates — remains viable.

The wave of anxiety around SaaS was fueled by predictions that AI agents would assemble the needed software on the fly themselves, making subscriptions unnecessary. In his interview with Crunchbase News, Docter sees this as a shift in interface, not the end of the market: artificial intelligence is becoming a layer inside products, not their gravedigger. Companies will keep paying for software by subscription — what changes is its inner workings and development speed, not the delivery economics itself.

*Speaker — Daniel Docter, managing director of Dell Technologies Capital

*Dell Technologies Capital — Dell Corporation's venture arm, invests in deep-tech and infrastructure startups

*Main thesis: AI is changing SaaS but not killing its business model

*The outcome of the AI startup race, according to Docter, will be determined by distribution, not model superiority

What Will Separate the Winners — Distribution

The fate of AI startups, in Docter's view, will be decided by distribution, not the technical superiority of the model. He proceeds from the premise that access to strong models is leveling out fast: baseline capabilities are becoming a commodity available to many teams almost simultaneously.

The difference between winners and losers, the investor believes, is created by the ability to get the product to the customer — sales channels, integration into existing workflows, partnerships, and an already accumulated user base. By this logic, technology can be copied, but an established sales channel and customer trust are far harder to replicate. A startup with a slightly weaker model but strong distribution will outpace a team with better technology and no route to market.

AI is changing

SaaS, but it is not driving the business model to extinction — and distribution ultimately separates the winners from the losers among AI startups.

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Daniel Docter, managing director of Dell Technologies Capital, in an interview with Crunchbase News

How to Build Deep-Tech Before the Market Is Ready

A separate topic in the interview is how to build a deep-tech startup for a market that isn't ready to accept it yet. Docter, who invests in deep technologies on behalf of Dell Technologies Capital, describes the main risk for such companies: the product outpaces demand, and the business risks not surviving until the market matures.

The way out, by the investor's logic, is to survive the period of market immaturity: spend capital economically, find early customers with acute pain points, and refine the technology so that by the time demand turns around, the company is the first to be ready. It is precisely patience with an "early" market — not just the strength of the technology — that separates survivors from those who burned out by getting ahead of it.

What This Means

For AI startup founders, the takeaway from the Dell investor is pragmatic: the race for the best model is not the main front. The winner is whoever builds the channels for delivering the product to the customer first. And SaaS as a form of software delivery, in Docter's view, will survive the wave of artificial intelligence rather than disappear beneath it.