As of writing March 12, 2026, the iShares Software ETF (IGV) is down more than 27% year to date, and since its September 2025 peak, is down more than 30% – losing more than $2 trillion in market cap. For the first time in the modern era, software stocks are now trading at or below the S&P 500 multiple. The rapid pace of AI agent innovation, especially by Anthropic, led to a massive selloff over the past few months and this selloff spread to well-known software stocks like Salesforce, Adobe, ServiceNow, Intuit, and others. Perhaps this is where many investors got confused. Agents are targeting AI agents and Destroying systems of first attachment. Think this way – if an AI agent can answer customer tickets, manage projects, or route communications – you don’t need Zendesk’s interface, or Asana’s boards, or HubSpot’s sequences. The man-loop that justified per-seat licensing disappears. But AI agent Cannot replace systems of record (Or at least it would be too expensive/too low capacity,…
