The AI Imperative
Why 2025-26 will reset tech's winners—and how to be on the right side of the reset.
1 · A Once-in-a-Generation Phase Shift
AI Labour is Already Cheaper
Auto-generated code now ships twice as fast at one-tenth the cost.
Business Models Repricing
What the cloud did to on-prem in 2010, AI will do to bloated SaaS in 2025.
Capital Chases AI-Native
Funds that once backed "vertical SaaS" now ask one question: Where's your AI leverage?
Implication: Every quarter you delay is a full product generation you fall behind.
2 · The "Cambrian AI Moment" — Adapt or Die
Imagine Phnom Penh, 1979: everything wiped clean, every institution rebuilt from scratch.
That's what AI is doing to software right now—Year Zero economics:
| Legacy Rule (2005-23) | Year-Zero Reality (2024-25) |
|---|---|
| More head-count = faster shipping | Agents & vibe-coding replace bodies |
| Best-in-class SaaS stack = moat | AI-bundles collapse entire toolchains |
| Raise big, grow at any cost | Capital demands AI cash-flow efficiency |
If you run a cloud-era SaaS and don't rewrite your stack and story in the next 12-18 months, an AI-native insurgent will out-iterate, out-price and out-fundraise you.
History won't remember the brand names—only who adapted.
3 · The Death of SaaS & the Industrial Software Complex
"$50 per employee, per month, for CRUD + dashboards? That's yesterday's tax."— Chamath Palihapitiya
Cloud-era SaaS priced its margin on ease of deployment, not on value per watt. AI obliterates that arbitrage:
Zero-shot agents replace Level-1 support, content ops, QA—no seats needed.
Composable models merge "best of breed" tools into single-query workflows.
Data sovereignty shifts back on-prem or edge, killing the "rent us forever" license.
The Industrial Software Complex—layers of expensive middleware, admin UIs and BI—collapses into lean, AI-driven operating systems that cost 90% less and deliver 80% of yesterday's feature set (also called the 8090 Principle).
4 · What Winning Looks Like in 2026
| Metric | Cloud-Era Median | AI-First Winners |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment cadence | Monthly | Daily |
| Feature cost (€) | 20,000 | < 2,000 |
| Gross margin | 65% | 80%+ |
| Sales cycles | 90 days | 30 days |
| Valuation multiple | 6-8× ARR | 10-15× AI-adjusted ARR |
Miss these benchmarks and you'll be the feature-rich Kodak in an iPhone world.
5 · Rotate's Blueprint for Surviving the Reset
AI-First Architecture Audit
Identify code, infra and process we can shove onto agents within 30 days.
Vibe-Coding Workflows
Copilot-driven dev patterns that double deploys without hiring.
Growth-Agent Bundle
Outbound sequencer, content clipper, demo-prep bot—ready on week 8.
Founder Scorecard
Weekly moves the needle on deploys, pipeline €, and gross margin.
Leadership Re-org
Design a 30% leaner org that scales after AI leverage, not before.
6 · Decide Fast, Move Faster
Legacy economics won't fix themselves.
Join Rotate's next cohort, starting 1 July 2025, and rebuild your company before Year Zero turns into Year Gone.
Rotate ⟳ — Engineering AI leverage into SaaS before someone else writes your post-mortem.