Are traditional Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies facing an existential threat? With the stock market valuations of many SaaS darlings dropping significantly, it is clear that Artificial Intelligence is massively disrupting how software is developed, shipped, and monetized. The winners and losers of this new era are still being decided, but one thing is certain: SaaS is at a crossroads.

In this episode, we explore a talk given by Krishna Raj Raja at Qatar Web Summit, Founder and CEO of the AI-native startup SupportLogic and author of Support Experience, to unpack exactly what it takes to survive the "Intelligence Era". Krishna explains why surviving this disruption requires more than just plugging a Large Language Model (LLM) into your software. As he notes, an LLM is simply a powerful "Ferrari engine" that still needs the rest of the car—wheels, steering, and safety measures—to function effectively in the real world.

Tune in as we dive deep into the transition from the legacy SaaS era to the new AI-first world, and discuss why companies must fundamentally rethink their business models, overcome the "Last Mile" problem, and reinvent their architectures to win the race.

Key Topics Covered in This Episode:

• The Four Eras of Computing: How the tech landscape has evolved from the SQL Database and SaaS eras into Big Data and today's Intelligence Era.
• The Conversational UX Revolution: Why the transition from Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) to Conversational User Interfaces is democratizing software and allowing anyone to seamlessly interact with computers.
• The "Ferrari Engine" Illusion: Why foundation models alone aren't enough, and why mastering rare edge-case data to solve the difficult "Last Mile" problem is the true competitive differentiator.
• Breaking Enterprise Silos: The challenge of overcoming disconnected Data, Signals, Context, and AI silos to build genuinely intelligent systems.
• Mastering Context: Why next-generation AI architecture requires long-term contextual memory that spans across time, interactions, channels, people, and systems of record.
• Beyond Cognitive Automation: Why the ultimate goal of the AI revolution shouldn't just be doing old tasks faster and cheaper, but creating entirely new products, services, and global economies