Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang used his Computex keynote in Taiwan to argue that the rise of agentic AI won’t wipe out software companies. Instead, he said the market will need “more tools than ever” as AI agents carry out work with minimal human intervention—an idea
For years, the pitch to software investors has been simple: software is eating the world. Now, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is trying to change the argument again—this time, before the fear spreads any further.
At a keynote presentation at Computex in Taiwan on Monday. Huang said the industry’s biggest threat isn’t AI itself. but the belief that agentic AI will make software companies disappear. He opened his remarks by addressing what he called a doom narrative circulating through the market: “A lot of people have said. ‘Jensen. AI is coming. Agentic AI is coming. Therefore, all of the software companies are going to go out of business.’ I said it’s exactly the opposite.”.
Agentic AI, Huang explained, refers to AI systems that can accomplish tasks with minimal human intervention. His point was that when many agents begin doing work, they will need software in a different way—not less of it, but more of it. Agents, he argued, will be “using ‘more tools than ever.’”
“This is actually an incredible time to be a software company, but the software has to be presented to the agent in a way that the agent can use it,” Huang added.
His comments landed in the middle of a market mood that has grown darker for software firms. The fear Huang was pushing back against has taken on its own shorthand—often described as a “Saaspocalypse”—and it has dragged down some of the sector’s best-known names. Since the start of the year, Atlassian, Salesforce, and SAP’s shares have all fallen by more than 20%.
The pressure has been felt beyond stock tickers. Companies that sell software as a service are confronting a question that affects product teams, pricing strategies, and long-term roadmaps: if AI can do tasks directly, where does that leave traditional subscription models?
Huang’s stance isn’t new. This is not the first time he has argued that AI won’t replace software companies outright. Speaking at a February Cisco AI event, he said that replacing software companies with AI was “the most illogical thing in the world, and time will prove itself.”
Other AI leaders have framed the issue more like adaptation than replacement. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have said software companies need to adjust, but they won’t be obsolete anytime soon.
Between those competing visions—AI as a tool that deepens software’s role versus AI as a force that erodes it—Wall Street has already shown where it’s been leaning. Huang’s message at Computex. delivered with confidence. is a direct attempt to pull investors back toward the idea that the next wave of AI won’t end the software business. It will demand that software be built and packaged so agents can use it.
Jensen Huang Nvidia agentic AI Computex software companies SaaS Saaspocalypse Atlassian Salesforce SAP stock decline tool use AI agents Cisco AI event Dario Amodei Sam Altman