Is the Software Apocalypse Real? Piper Sandler Just Slashed Its Price Target on Salesforce Stock.

Software stocks have had a rough start to 2026. By late February, the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) was down about 27.2% for the year, while many application software names had fallen 30% to 55% as investors started questioning how much growth these companies can still deliver in a market being reshaped by AI. 

The S&P 500 Software Index was also down 20% year-to-date (YTD) as of early April. If AI agents can do work that once required expensive software platforms, what happens to the old SaaS model? That fear has become so widespread that some have even started calling it the “SaaS-pocalypse.”