Barclays outlines financial traits that may help SaaS firms endure AI disruption

The software industry faces renewed pressure as AI reshapes market dynamics, prompting investors to question which companies will endure. After Airtable’s acquisition for $1.3 billion—far below its $11 billion pandemic-era valuation—and HubSpot’s share slump, Barclays looked back at five major technology transitions to pinpoint survival factors. The analysis revealed that rapid growth or large spending are less decisive than healthy profit margins, robust cash generation, low debt levels and high employee productivity.

These attributes give managers flexibility when industry conditions shift. Applying the framework, Barclays created a "Resilient Software" portfolio that ranks AppLovin, Freshworks and InterDigital highest, while also naming Datadog, Veeva Systems, Zscaler and other large players such as Microsoft and Salesforce as strong candidates.