Harvard Business Review: AI's Impact on SaaS Will Be Uneven — High-Volume, Low-Stakes Workflows Hit First

Harvard Business Review·medium signal

HBS professor Christopher Stanton argues in HBR (published May 27) that AI disruption of SaaS won't be uniform: customer support, code generation, and inbound handling face 30-50% automation potential near-term, while enterprise systems of record with strong switching barriers and mission-critical data dependencies face lower risk. The piece aligns with Bain's earlier analysis identifying the same risk stratification, adding academic rigor to what traders have been pricing in. For builders: target the high-volume, digitized, lower-stakes workflows where AI can demonstrate immediate ROI rather than trying to replace complex systems of record.