The great software rewiring: AI isn’t just eating everything; it is everything

Once upon a time, the software ate the world. Now the AI ​​is there to digest what remains. The old IT model, where applications have reigned, access and platforms controlled on the markets took their cut, developed. What emerges is a world in the leading where software functions are not trapped inside applications but exist as dynamic services and on demand accessible via a-native interfaces.

For decades, computer science has been an glorified filing binder. The applications were digital, autonomous, rigid and wall files each other. Do you want to check the weather? Open an application. Need to reserve a flight? Another application. Pay an invoice? Yet another. The result? A fragmented user experience where we switch between countless silos, each in competition for real estate on a home screen.

The generative AI breaks this model. Instead of clicking and typing on individual programs, users will interact with intelligent agents who recover, process and generally generously real -time responses, no required application. Ask a single AI assistant to manage travel, optimize finances and recommend a training routine? Do. Need legal documents examined when ordering grocery store and summarizing today’s news? Seamless. The new interface is not an application. He is conversational, predictive and without friction.

To be fair, this new world of functional intelligence is not yet entirely ready. Applications do not disappear overnight, but their grip on computer science can slip. The AI ​​is not cared for with prepackaged software silos. He reclassified experience, making modular, dynamic and deeply integrated software. The whole idea of ​​opening and switching between applications? It will quickly feel like an inherited thought.

The outgoing risk: traditional markets are on the chronometer

For years, digital windows and formed garden markets were unbeatable pits. Check the distribution, tax each transaction and rattle in billions. Beautiful. But what happens when applications become…. useless?

The development of interactions focused on AI threatens the entire economy of the distribution of applications. If users are counting on ai-native systems instead of installing discreet software, traditional software markets become a relic. AI eats the intermediary. The economic model goes from the monetization of applications to service layers focused on AI, where the interactions are transparent, personalized and, above all, out of the reach of the control of inherited platforms.

Two inevitable consequences:

1. Income disruption: more than 30% reduction in application sales or integrated purchases. If AI manages transactions independently, the Economics App Store implodes.
2. Disintermediation of the platform: AI is native of the cloud and autonomous equipment. Control of digital ecosystems decreases as software becomes an ambient service rather than a closed experience.

The new question is who has the service layers powered by AI? Because the one who will have it will have the next billion billion dollars industry.

New power structures: AI models and vertical IA solutions

AI food applications creates an obvious power vacuum cleaner. Where does the value move? Simple control: control:

• AI models: entities developing the most advanced foundation models define the central intelligence layer.
• Interface and user customization: Anyone building the most intuitive AI-Native interfaces will dominate the commitment.
• Data and integration: AI prosperous on access to owner data in real time. Whoever has data pipelines control ideas, intelligence and, ultimately, economics.

But there is another force in play: the AI ​​vertical solutions.

Currently, most large models of language (LLMS) look like a Swiss knife with infinite – exciting but crushing tools. Users do not want to “understand” AI. They want solutions, AI agents adapted to specific industries and workflows. Think: legal AI writing contracts, management of financial AI, investment management, creation of AI generator content, scientific AI accelerating research. Large AI is interesting. The vertical AI is precious.

Currently, the LLMs are too wide, too abstract, too inaccessible for the most part. A virgin cat box is not a product, these are homework. If AI wants to replace applications, it must become invisible, integrating transparently into daily work flows without forcing users to think about invites, parameters or backend capacities.

Companies that succeed in this next wave not only create better AI models, but better IA experiences. The future of computer science does not concern an AI that does everything. These are many specialized AI systems that know exactly what users need and perform perfectly.

The entire software battery is rewritten in real time. What replaces the old model?

• Microservices on applications: Forget the swollen applications. Future software will be modular, on demand and identity. Book a trip? The AI ​​agent provides flights, hotels and real -time rental cars, without opening an application.
• AI markets: the next software market is not an application shop. It is an Ai-Native Service Market, where users are subscribed to specific AI agents rather than downloading static software.
• A-A-As-A-Service: Instead of selling autonomous applications, developers will strengthen the “skills” or “agents” that integrate into a global AI ecosystem, monetized by subscriptions or prices based on use.

Inevitable disturbance

It is not an evolution; It is a coup. Gen Ai is not only another technological layer; It has the potential to eat the entire interior software industry.

The old software model was built on rarity. Distribution control, limits access, invoice of premiums. Erased it. The new model is fluid, without friction and infinitely scalable.

Platforms and companies that do not adapt could be relegated to history books, joining the ranks of those who rejected the Internet, Mobile and Cloud before him.

AI is not only the next wave of software; It is the wave that breaks everything in front of him. The only question that remains is: who rises it and who drowns?

Justin Westcott heads the world technology sector to Edelman.