Die Zukunft des SaaS: How Enterprise Giants Defy the Stack Fallacy in the GenAI Era (Part II)

In Part 1 of Die Zukunft des SaaS: How the Stack Fallacy Sabotages GenAI Ambitions, we explored the Stack Fallacy, which explains why companies at lower stack layers—like cloud infrastructure or foundational AI models—often fail to succeed in customer-facing SaaS markets due to insufficient customer empathy. We also examined how Generative AI (GenAI) threatens to disrupt the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry by enabling new entrants, commoditizing features, and raising customer expectations. In this second part, we analyze how enterprise giants—Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Workday, Pega, Adobe, and Blue Yonder—navigate these challenges to lead in the GenAI era. By leveraging their higher-layer expertise, strategic partnerships, and customer-centric innovation, these companies sidestep the Stack Fallacy to maintain dominance. We’ll also delve into the broader implications for the SaaS industry and what lies ahead in this AI-driven landscape.

Defying the Stack Fallacy: Strategies of SaaS Giants

As outlined in Part 1, the Stack Fallacy highlights the peril of moving up the stack without deep customer understanding. Major SaaS providers, operating at the application layer, hold a natural advantage: they already know their customers’ needs. Below, we explore how these companies integrate GenAI to stay ahead, weaving in insights from industry reports and company strategies.

Deep Customer Empathy at the Higher Stack Layer

These companies serve specific business domains—CRM (Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics), IT service management (ServiceNow), ERP (SAP, Oracle, Workday), process automation (Pega), marketing and creative tools (Adobe), and supply chain management (Blue Yonder). Their decades of experience provide direct insight into customer pain points, such as streamlining sales pipelines, automating IT workflows, or optimizing logistics. IDC’s 2024 SaaS Market Trends report notes that 65% of enterprise SaaS success hinges on domain-specific expertise, which these players possess in abundance. Unlike lower-layer providers, these companies don’t need to infer user needs—they have direct feedback from millions of customers. For example, Workday’s HR platform uses customer input to tailor GenAI features like talent insights, ensuring relevance to HR professionals, unlike generic AI tools from infrastructure providers.

Strategic Integration of GenAI

Salesforce embeds GenAI via its Einstein platform, offering predictive lead scoring and conversational assistants for CRM workflows, as detailed in its 2025 Einstein AI Roadmap.

ServiceNow uses Now Assist to integrate GenAI into IT service management, automating ticket resolution and virtual agents, per its 2024 Now Platform Updates.

SAP leverages its Joule AI assistant to automate ERP tasks like procurement and supply chain planning, ensuring compliance with industry regulations (SAP, 2025, Joule AI Overview).

Microsoft incorporates GenAI through Copilot across Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Azure AI, enabling natural language data analysis and automation (Microsoft, 2025, Azure AI Innovations).

Oracle uses OCI AI services to embed GenAI in ERP, HCM, and supply chain applications, focusing on verticals like healthcare (Oracle, 2024, OCI AI Strategy).

Workday powers HR and financial platforms with GenAI features like automated payroll insights, as outlined in its 2025 AI in HCM Report.

Pega enhances process automation with GenAI-driven decisioning for complex workflows (Pega, 2024, Pega Infinity Updates).

Adobe integrates GenAI via Adobe Firefly and Experience Cloud for content creation and personalized marketing (Adobe, 2025, Experience Cloud AI Roadmap).

Blue Yonder uses GenAI to optimize supply chain tasks like demand forecasting (Blue Yonder, 2024, Luminate Platform Enhancements). Gartner’s 2024 AI Adoption Trends report highlights that 75% of successful enterprise AI deployments rely on partnerships rather than in-house model development, explaining why these companies partner with providers like XAI to avoid lower-layer traps.

Platform Approach and Ecosystem

These companies leverage platforms and ecosystems to amplify GenAI adoption without overextending into lower layers. Salesforce’s AppExchange, ServiceNow’s Now Platform, Microsoft’s Power Platform, SAP’s Business Technology Platform, Oracle’s Fusion Cloud, Workday’s Extend, Pega’s low-code platform, Adobe’s Experience Platform, and Blue Yonder’s Luminate Platform enable customers and developers to build GenAI-powered applications. For instance, Microsoft’s Power Platform allows businesses to create custom GenAI apps for retail analytics, reducing Microsoft’s need to build every solution itself (Microsoft, 2025, Power Platform Case Studies). McKinsey’s 2023 study on platform-based SaaS models found that such approaches boost adoption rates by 40%, showcasing their effectiveness. By empowering ecosystems, these companies sidestep the Stack Fallacy, avoiding the need to solve every customer problem directly while enabling innovation at the application layer.

Data Advantage and Trust

Superior Product Disruption

Broader Implications for the SaaS Industry

Opportunities for Leaders

Big Players like Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Workday, Pega, Adobe, and Blue Yonder thrive by focusing on domain-specific GenAI applications and partnering with lower-layer providers and complying with agent standards like MCP, A2A etc. Their ecosystems and trust frameworks give them an edge, per market trends.

New Entrants and Niche Markets

GenAI enables startups to target niche markets, but they must avoid the Stack Fallacy by ensuring customer empathy. The Stack Fallacy emphasizes customer empathy. SaaS leaders succeed by solving real pain points, like Microsoft’s Copilot for sales forecasting or Blue Yonder’s GenAI for supply chain optimization

The Future of SaaS : As the SaaS market grows, GenAI’s transformative power will intensify competition. Leaders who balance customer empathy with strategic GenAI integration will shape Die Zukunft des SaaS, while those ignoring the Stack Fallacy risk obsolescence. These companies demonstrate that success lies in understanding customers, not just mastering technology.

Labels: Agentic AI, Enterprise Software, Gen AI, SaaS