I constantly read that AI will end programming. That SaaS is dead. That developers will be replaced. I think differently. I believe AI won't end the software industry, but it will radically transform it. I believe this transformation will span from how software is built to how it's distributed. With tools like Cloudflare Tunnels, the local datacenter makes sense again. The centralized cloud is starting to give way to decentralization. And generic software, designed for thousands, will give way to custom software.

There's a curious idea that has quietly defined the software industry for the past twenty years, or even longer. I was taught to abstract and generalize, to discover patterns to create software that solves the problems of many. This idea is so integrated into our way of working that we've almost stopped seeing it.

The idea is simple. When a company has an operational problem, it looks for software. If it needs to manage customers, it installs a CRM. If it needs to organize internal processes, it implements an ERP. If it wants to improve customer relationships, it hires a support platform. If it needs to manage reservations, it adopts a specialized system.

It seems obvious. So much so that we rarely stop to think about what happens immediately after. Because at that moment a silent negotiation begins. Not between the company and the provider. Between the company and itself.

The software promises to solve a problem, but in exchange it demands something, a counterpart. That the company learns to function as the software expects it to function. We've given it different names: implementation, digital transformation, integration. But the reality is much simpler. For decades, companies have had to adapt to software far more than software has adapted to them.

The CRM comes with a certain commercial logic, so the sales team modifies its way of working. The ERP expects certain internal processes, so operations reorganizes its flows around the system. The booking tool assumes a certain way of relating to the customer, so the business ends up adjusting to those rules.

And little by little something strange happens. The company begins to look more and more like the software it uses. And the worst part is that for a long time this made sense.

Because building software was expensive, extremely expensive. Developing a product required years of work, specialized teams, complex infrastructure, and long development cycles. My industry created processes to extract and standardize knowledge and formalize processes. The economics of the sector forced an obvious conclusion: since developing software was costly, that software had to serve many companies at the same time.

Generic products had to be built, products flexible enough for thousands of different clients, and that gave rise to an entire era, that of SaaS. One product, thousands of companies. All accepting, to a greater or lesser extent, a silent renunciation: that the software was not really built for them.

Over time we became so accustomed to this compromise that we stopped questioning it. In fact, entire industries emerged dedicated to helping us accept that reality: from specialized consultancies to integrators and implementers. Configuration experts. Entire professionals dedicated to helping companies mold themselves around generic systems.

And seen from a certain distance, it's quite a strange idea. We accepted that technology would define how organizations should operate. Not the other way around.

But lately I have the feeling that we are beginning to abandon that logic, because something fundamental is changing. For the first time in recent history, building software is starting to become less expensive. I'm not talking about servers, or infrastructure, or clouds. I'm talking about the very act of translating a specific need into functional software.

Artificial intelligence is drastically reducing the cost of building software. And this fact, from my point of view, also changes all the economic decisions that had defined the industry until now.

For decades, generic software was an economic necessity because it was too expensive to build specific solutions for each business. What will happen when we can afford to build software truly adapted to how each organization works?

Because no company is really the same as another even if they look alike from the outside. If we observe a company long enough, we begin to discover something interesting. From the smallest restaurant to the largest multinational, each organization develops its own operational personality, its identity. Its own internal language and its invisible habits and its exceptions. Its apparently irrational decisions that, for some reason, end up working extraordinarily well. Everything that makes a company precisely that company and that differentiates one from another.

And yet, for twenty years software has treated all those differences as a problem. As friction, as inconsistency. As something that had to be standardized.

I am convinced that those small details were not inefficiencies. Because they represent precisely the operational essence of the business. Its particular way of existing. Its internal craftsmanship. Its identity.

For years, software rewarded companies that were able to resemble each other. The more your business fit the generic models of enterprise software, the better technology worked for you. But I suspect we are entering a completely different stage.

For the first time, software is beginning to be able to understand nuances. Learn exceptions. Capture unique patterns and adapt to specific contexts. And that means that many of the things that previously prevented automating a business are beginning to become an advantage. What was once friction is beginning to transform into operational identity.

I don't think we're seeing the end of software as a service. In fact, we're probably about to experience the biggest software explosion we've ever known. But it will be radically different software.

There will still be generic, universal software that fits many. But there will be more room for purer, closer software. Less generic. Less universal. Less designed for thousands of identical companies. And much more built around the particularities that make each business unique.

Perhaps, for the first time in the short history of the software industry, technology will stop asking us to change to adapt to it, and begin to do exactly the opposite. Learn how we are, understand how we work, and adapt to our particular way of operating.

At Autarqui.co we have been thinking about this transition for some time. We believe that the future is not about making all companies look more alike. We believe exactly the opposite. That technology should help each organization preserve what makes it unique, while making it more productive, more autonomous, and more self-sufficient.

For too long software forced us to accept compromises. Perhaps we are entering the first technological era where those compromises simply cease to be necessary.