'No Reasons To Own': Software Stocks Sink on Fear of New AI Tool (bloomberg.com)
- Reference: 0180637098
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/22/0946226/no-reasons-to-own-software-stocks-sink-on-fear-of-new-ai-tool
- Source link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-18/-no-reasons-to-own-software-stocks-sink-on-fear-of-new-ai-tool
> The release of a new artificial intelligence tool from startup Anthropic on Jan. 12 rekindled fears about disruption that weighed on software makers in 2025.
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> TurboTax owner Intuit tumbled 16% last week, its worst since 2022, while Adobe and Salesforce, which makes customer relationship management software, both sank more than 11%. All told, a group of software-as-a-service stocks tracked by Morgan Stanley is down 15% so far this year, following a drop of 11% in 2025. It's the worst start to a year since 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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> While unproven, the tool represents just the type of capabilities that investors have been fearing, and reinforces bearish positions that are looking increasingly entrenched, according to Jordan Klein, a tech-sector specialist at Mizuho Securities. "Many buysiders see no reasons to own software no matter how cheap or beaten down the stocks get," Klein wrote in a Jan. 14 note to clients. "They assume zero catalysts for a re-rate exist right now," he said, referring to the potential for higher valuation multiples.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-18/-no-reasons-to-own-software-stocks-sink-on-fear-of-new-ai-tool
Yeah well they're shit (Score:3)
> Adobe and Salesforce, which makes customer relationship management software, both sank more than 11%.
Everything Salesforce does is shit, and most of what Adobe does is shit. Acrobat reader still can't even display PDFs created with Acrobat Pro reliably for example. e.g. I scroll and the checkboxes disappear and it lags. Perhaps they should focus on making things work instead of adding new features nobody is asking for. There's too much competition today. There are perfectly good OSS CRMs, there's competition for every product Adobe sells, and not having to deal with Adobe is reason enough to consider it.
Re: (Score:2)
"...there's competition for every product Adobe sells, and not having to deal with Adobe is reason enough to consider it."
That is true, but it does not support the claim that "most of what Adobe does is shit." Adobe is an industry leader in a number of areas, Photoshop is definitely NOT shit.
Re: (Score:1)
> That is true, but it does not support the claim that "most of what Adobe does is shit." Adobe is an industry leader in a number of areas, Photoshop is definitely NOT shit.
Your single counterexample does not contradict my statement. Aren't you getting tired of finding out you don't know how logic works yet?
Re: (Score:2)
There may be a point to this...
Taking TurboTax as an example. Lets say I use it to fill out my tax return - it's entirely conceivable that I could create an app that does that one task perfectly adequately. If you believe the hype, I could create such a thing by vibe-coding it in a weekend. Thus, TurboTax has no utility for all those customers who just use it to fill out their tax returns (it still has value to those who maybe do other tax related things with it though).
The problem of course is that any old
The draft inspection problem (Score:1)
Taxes are not something you want bots guessing at. Most places AI is doing well are where drafts are first created and then tuned using a combination of tools. Tax doesn't work that way because the user is not looking at image or text to be tweaked, they can't normally "see" the algorithm a tax computing gizmo is using to know where to tweak.
If users knew enough to readily tweak tax algorithms, they probably would use a spreadsheet anyhow, it's a tweaker's quickest route to KISS.
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't about turbotax. We are not going to have 100 million people create a tool to do their taxes. Heck, I have the knowledge (and my previous taxes as base) to do my own taxes, but I don't. Why? Because I can't e-file on my own, and I can't be bothered to print something out and wait forever for a refund. (RIP IRS Direct File)
It might be about Quickbooks. However, I think it's more likely to see people build QBO alternatives and the market flooded with vertical-specific competitors than everyone makin
Never you mind (Score:2)
That many CEO's and other business owners see no tangible results or savings with AI...
Re: (Score:3)
The *.ai industry tries hard to make Ai-products the ONLY source of information. But, because of legacy IP, hallucinations and pedantry *.ai cannot FIRST become the gold standard of information. Human generated alpha-numeric text-strings are still the most robust descriptors/predictors/interpreters of behavior, physical or human. As we see now, only path forward for AI-companies is fraud or legal violence.
investors are not bright, only wealthy (Score:2)
"Many buysiders see no reasons to own software no matter how cheap or beaten down the stocks get"
Doesn't say much for "buysiders" then.
Isn't AI itself software property?
Sorry not sorry Adobe (Score:4, Funny)
Adobe can take their Creative Cloud subscription and shove it up their recurring asses.
Claude Co-Work (Score:2, Informative)
I had to click into the article, and then into a link FROM that article, to find out the name of this "new AI tool"
It's Claude Co-Work
Write worthwhile apps and support them properly! (Score:2)
Obviously, the software giants out there like Adobe and Microsoft aren't going away. They provide so many entrenched software apps/tools that do tasks people need in the business world, and that employees are actually trained in/familiar with using.
But increasingly, the code they're cranking out is underwhelming and not exciting NEW users to adopt any of it.
I don't see how any of them can achieve much growth without developing compelling, brand new applications first? This is like Pepsi or Coca Cola at thi
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly, many people are just moving to phones.
I seem a gamedev once complain that half of the kids didn't knew how to use a keyboard, mouse OR controller anymore.
It's a pretty terrible future.
Picture editing I get, but TurboTax?! (Score:3)
Sure, most people can probably get their photo editing/touch ups done with a simple AI tool. But letting AI help you fill out your taxes?! Unless people are using TurboTax to fill out their 1040EZ forms (and dear God, I hope not) it's hubris to let AI do their taxes with the complexity of the tax code, let alone the HUMAN interaction of the IRS shifting rules interpretation at whim.
Somebody can train an AI engine solely on tax code and offer that as a solution. But then you have something like TurboTax AI where the company is still liable for what it's AI does and that's still, last I checked, software as a service. Just going to Google and say "Do my taxes" is just asking for trouble.
Wasn't that already their platform? (Score:2)
Don't most of the proprietary companies already claim their customers don't own the copies of software that they "purchased?"
By their standards, software ownership isn't changing one iota.
Sick Of AI Wasting My Time (Score:4, Interesting)
Just yesterday, I went to Claude for a very common Powershell script. I thought that it would be quicker to have Claude generate this customized variant than me digging out an old copy.
The appropriate script should have been 10-15 lines of code, executing four key steps. Claude completely missed one of the four steps and had to be corrected twice to get them. CLaude bloated the fuck out of it to 40+ lines that didn't work and I could not be bothered to debug. 16+ iterations of the script before I said fuck this. I closed Claude, found a 15 line copy of an old script, and did the needful in two minutes.
Yet another instance of AI leading me round the garden path for way too much wasted time.
I marvel at some of these supposedly vibe coded web applications that are thrown out there. That they work at all, let alone do complex stuff well, all while looking great, is amazing. And it leads one to question my prompting skills. But, when a four word Google search immediately gives me 15 different working solutions to my problem and Claude dicks around for 30 minutes before I abort, that tells me that the problem isn't just me.
I'm sick of AI wasting my time!
"You will own nothing..." (Score:1)
"...And you will be happy for this" -- Creepy European Guy From Cop 27.
Re: (Score:2)
Irony is that he doesn't own nothing , but he seems pretty happy. I have a higher opinion of Putin than such creeps