Friday, March 20
The recent launch of task-automating plugins for Anthropic’s Claude Cowork agent triggered what Jefferies, an investment bank and financial services company. dramatically termed a “SaaSpocalypse”, sending tremors through technology stocks in both India and the US. Indian IT majors such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro, and HCL Tech saw sharp sell-offs, mirrored by declines in US-listed consulting and software firms like Accenture and Cognizant. On the surface, the reaction appeared abrupt and disproportionate to a single product announcement. But the market’s response reflected a growing realization that artificial intelligence (AI) is crossing a critical threshold, evolving from a helpful feature embedded in products and services into a direct competitor to the very businesses that once hop
