The future winners will be
AI will change things. But not in the way many thinks.
After a year of AI hype we can be certain of few things.
AI is not a replacement of deterministic business processes. It can be used to create and adjust process automation and tools, but it is not a replacement of well written transaction processing or analytics. Due to its randomness in nature.
AI is not a replacement of IT engineers either. Yes, there are layoffs, bet lets admit, there were too many people in the industry that should have better off somewhere else in the first place.
Where is the AI good at? Right. Learning. One can super easy acquire knowledge that previously required years of experience. One can validate any idea on the fly. And one person with the right AI skills and tools now can accomplish a job of a team. What this leads to?
I believe, this leads to harsh time for classical IT vendors. The “we are better, stronger, cheaper, smarter, faster, exclusive“ type of guys. “Our unique approach is first to understand client business requirements..“ — yea right. Like everybody else is out there just to dumb code solutions.
I believe, this also is a funeral bell for majority of SaaS, as any piece of business process automation or service can easily be copied and transformed as a software as software development costs tend to zero.
Where this leads to? AI gives an opportunity for non IT business to in-source their IT functions. Up to now that was typical for banking and insurance, now, it is time for other industries to explore new frontiers.
A Hypothetical Shore Steel Industries Ltd.
What are pros and cons for mid size industrial entity to switch over to in-sourcing. Let’s consider a hypothetical Shore Steel Industries Ltd., a European industrial manufacturer with 2,000 employees, several warehouses, and €250M annual revenue.
Today, they rely on SAP (sorry, SAP, nothing personal :)) for ERP, ADP for payroll, Specialized vendors for logistics and transport, Agencies for e-commerce and client portals, Their total IT vendor bill: roughly €1.7M per year.
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Now imagine they decide to in-source. They hire a 5 person AI empowered team, capable of delivering with AI copilots, open-source frameworks, and low-code tools. Such team can rebuild an internal ERP ecosystem — unified across production, HR, logistics, and finance — within 12–18 months.
Annual cost: €750k (including infrastructure). Savings: nearly €1M per year. Payback period: less than 12 months.
Beyond the costs — the new agility is truly remarkable — process changes can now be implemented overnight instead of multi-month vendor cycles.
The Risk Shift
Sure, this model isn’t free of risks. In-sourcing increases dependency on internal talent, security responsibility, and continuity planning. But these risks are controllable. Documentation, automation, and cross-training mitigate most of them.
What’s eliminated, however, is vendor lock-in, slow change cycles, inflated license fees, and the cultural divide between “business” and “IT.”
The Strategic Advantage
When digital operations are in-house, feedback loops shorten. Data stays internal. Productivity increases — not through layoffs, but through ownership.
Over time, these in-house systems evolve into living digital organisms: constantly tuned by the people who use them. That is not just cost optimization — that is competitive differentiation.
What This Means for the Industry
For classical IT vendors and SaaS providers, this is the real disruption.
The future winners will be those who help businesses to build themselves, not those who keep selling black-box software or inflated consulting hours.
AI will not replace business systems. It will replace the distance between business and technology. And that will be enough to rewrite the entire IT services landscape.
