Paul, not a CFA@Investmentideen
Call me out in a few years when all my software investments go to zero:
AI (incl. “vibe coding”) commoditizes code, not systems of record. CSU owns mission‑critical systems of record in niche markets. Those moats are data, workflows, integrations & switching costs – not the difficulty of writing code.
Think about what CSU actually buys: 20‑year‑old billing, practice management, municipal, utility, hospital, etc. systems that are completely entangled with how that vertical runs. Replacing them is a multi‑year capex + career‑risking project. AI doesn’t change that risk calculus.
Vibe coding makes it cheap to stand up “an app”. It does not:
• migrate 15 years of messy production data
• recreate hundreds of integrations (banks, tax authorities, devices)
• rebuild reports auditors & regulators already trust
• retrain an entire workforce on new workflows
Most CSU businesses sit at a control point in the value chain. They are the authoritative ledger for money, people, or regulated data. That’s qualitatively different from a point solution that sends emails or draws dashboards on top of someone else’s data.
AI is great at “systems of action”: generating content, orchestrating tasks, moving data between APIs. Those are the tools that get nuked – thin SaaS wrappers around Gmail, Stripe, HubSpot, QuickBooks, etc. They have shallow data gravity and low switching costs.
But systems of record (ERP/CRM/core VMS) encode:
• strict data models & referential integrity
• audit trails, permissions, compliance
• deterministic workflows that boards, auditors, and regulators understand.
You don’t vibe‑code your general ledger or your clinical records.
We’ve seen a similar wave already: low‑code/no‑code. For a decade you could drag‑and‑drop your own business app. Did enterprises kill SAP, Oracle, or niche ERPs? No – they use low‑code at the edges while keeping standardized core systems. AI just turns that dial further.
The “every company will build their own ERP with AI agents” story underestimates non‑coding costs: product mgmt, domain expertise, change mgmt, security, incident response, integration maintenance. Most CSU end‑markets don’t even have the teams to run that experiment.
On margins: AI is more likely to be margin‑accretive for CSU‑type vendors. It:
• boosts dev productivity (faster features/integrations with same R&D)
• automates support, onboarding, documentation
• improves internal ops (billing, collections, forecasting)
Can buyers use AI to squeeze prices? Some, at the margin. But in most CSU verticals, software is 1–2% of revenue and mission‑critical. The binding constraint is risk, not license cost. As long as the app works and is maintained, there isn’t much appetite to rock the boat.
Meanwhile vendors can repackage AI as upsell: copilots, agents, forecasting, process mining. Core ERP/CRM pricing stays per‑seat/per‑site; AI is a new line item or higher tier. That’s ARPU expansion, not commoditization. The code got cheaper – the outcome got more valuable.
Where AI really hurts is exactly what you flagged: point solutions. Single‑feature SaaS that:
• sits at the UI layer
• talks to a few APIs
• has no proprietary data model or workflow depth.
Those become prompts: “Hey model, do what this $30/month SaaS was doing.”
Net effect:
• Point solutions & generic horizontal tools: heavy pressure.
• Core vertical systems of record: AI is an add‑on + cost reducer, not a replacement.
• CSU’s skill set (buying sticky, boring, regulated, low‑IT‑budget software) is aligned with where AI is least disruptive.
Could AI still reshuffle winners within verticals? Sure. Incumbents that ignore AI may lose to incumbents that embrace it. Some CSU properties will under‑invest and stagnate. But that’s competition at the margin, not “vibe coding obsoletes the whole business model.”
So why doesn’t AI commoditize CSU? Because their moat isn’t lines of code. It’s being the entrenched, audited, regulator‑blessed system that runs payroll, billing, tax, and operations for thousands of tiny niches. AI will sit on top of that stack long before it replaces it.
Oh and I haven't even started talking about the complexity of running a software company and building a team.
$CSU.TO $ACP.WA $SGN.WA $TOI.V $LMN.V
