Empresas de software recurren a recompras y cambios directivos para recuperar confianza en Wall Street

A crisis of confidence has settled over the software industry, and the executives running these once-celebrated companies are reaching for every tool at their disposal to convince investors they still matter. The desperation shows in small, telling gestures: Dylan Field, the CEO of Figma, turned down roughly $46 million in stock compensation earlier this month, framing the rejection as a sacrifice for shareholders. It was a move that echoed decisions made by ServiceNow and Intuit at the start of 2026, when both companies' leadership teams announced they would not sell shares in the foreseeable future. These are not the actions of executives confident in their trajectory.

What industry observers have begun calling the "SaaSpocalypse" reflects a deeper anxiety: investors fear that artificial intelligence tools and nimble startups will cannibalize the business models that made software companies the darlings of the 2010s. Stock valuations have collapsed nearly 50 percent from their peaks in early 2025. The companies have responded by launching their own AI products and insisting they will thrive in this new era, but the market remains unconvinced. Rishi Jaluria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, captured the mood plainly: "Numerous management teams see what's happening to their stock and think: 'We have no idea what to do.'" The defensive posture has become almost comical. Bill McDermott, the voluble CEO of ServiceNow, told analysts earlier this year that the company could "return market capitalization" to shareholders. Larry Ellison of Oracle was more blunt in March: "We believe the 'SaaSpocalypse' applies to others, but not to us."

Some companies have transformed their quarterly earnings calls into marketing platforms for products that barely exist. Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom Communications, has been presenting earnings reports through an AI-generated avatar since spring—a smiling digital replica that speaks in a robotic voice and is meant to remind investors that Zoom has expanded beyond video conferencing. "I'm proud to be one of the first CEOs to use an avatar in an earnings call," Yuan declared. Yet Zoom's stock has fallen 81 percent from its peak in late 2020. The avatar has not changed the math.

Other companies have simply made their results harder to read. Salesforce announced in early 2026 that it would provide less detailed revenue breakdowns by product. More aggressively, the company has renamed many of its flagship products to include its AI tool, "Agentforce." Sales Cloud, the software that built Salesforce's empire by helping salespeople manage contacts and deals, is now "Agentforce Sales." Oracle did something similar, rebranding its database as "Oracle AI Database" in late 2025. The strategy backfires more often than it works. Jaluria noted that simply slapping an AI label on an existing product immediately raises investor suspicion. If overall company revenue is not accelerating, it becomes nearly impossible to argue that a software company is genuinely benefiting from artificial intelligence.

Facing sustained skepticism, some companies have signaled transformation through leadership changes. Adobe took the unusual step of publicly announcing it was searching for a new CEO before even identifying a successor. Workday brought back cofoundor Aneel Bhusri to lead the company just two years after he had stepped aside for a sales-focused executive. Tom Siebel of C3.AI returned to the CEO role in May, less than a year after departing. These moves are meant to signal that the old guard understands the moment and is ready to steer the ship in a new direction.

But the most reliable tool for placating investors remains the stock buyback. Salesforce executed the largest accelerated share repurchase financed by debt in corporate history earlier this year, borrowing $25 billion to buy back its own stock. CEO Marc Benioff called the sharp decline in his company's share price a "great buying opportunity." Adobe has repurchased nearly $16 billion in shares over the past 18 months as the price fell. "We're clearly demonstrating strong conviction that we should use capital allocation to repurchase our shares," Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said in June. These buybacks are a form of financial engineering that can prop up earnings per share without actually growing the business, and investors know it.

There are signs of genuine recovery, but they are narrow and selective. Palantir Technologies, Snowflake, and Microsoft have seen their stocks begin to recover in recent weeks as they have shown evidence of accelerating revenue. Yet the rebound is largely confined to infrastructure software companies rather than those building applications for end users. Tyler Radke, an analyst at Citigroup, offered blunt advice to management teams: "Don't try to be too clever; investors see through it immediately." Real reinvention and new business creation in the AI era are what matter, he said. "There's nothing you can do about appearances and gimmicks." The software industry built its fortune on solving real problems. Until these companies can demonstrate they are solving new ones, no amount of rebranding, avatar presentations, or executive shuffling will restore the confidence that has been lost.