Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has pushed back at the suggestion that artificial intelligence could end software and SaaS businesses like his, arguing that AI will actually just make enterprise applications even more capable than they ever have been. Speaking during his keynote at the company’s annual AI World conference, Ellison directly addressed ongoing concerns that businesses could use AI to build their own software – we’ve already seen many popular apps and suites like Adobe’s Creative Cloud be imitated by AI, for example. "There’s been some talk about there’s going to be a SaaSpocalypse because everyone’s going to use AI to build their own applications," he said. "I don’t think that’s quite true. I think companies will continue to build applications, but they will be quite different because of AI." Future apps will be fully tailored to geographies and industries
Rather than making today’s software redundant, Ellison believes AI will allow developers to make their apps far more comprehensive, capable of handling entire business processes and fine-tuned for every type of sector and business need. He argued that even the most established enterprise applications today are only so good, automating just a proportion of the processes businesses actually need. "They may be the best things that are commercially available… [but] they’re not done," he revealed, acknowledging that many sectors still need to build their own extensions and buy other third-party apps and connectors. "For the first time… [the] software industry can actually finish the applications if we start doing them industry by industry." Oracle’s biggest clear push is in the healthcare sector currently, with Ellison speaking on stage about the notoriously complex and highly regulated nature of this industry – immense challenges for one global software company when navigating endless geographical variabilities is a must…