AI引爆軟體股拋售潮，投資者預期今年併購市場將迎來高峰

Software sell-off sparked by AI sets stage for potential big year of M&A, investors say

Cloud software stocks have started this year where they left off in 2025: sell-off mode.

The continued downward spiral is setting the stage for a flurry of acquisitions, investors told CNBC.

The WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund, which tracks cloud software, has dropped more than 8% so far this year, while the Nasdaq is slightly up. Leading software names like Salesforce, ServiceNow and Adobe are down more than 14% after badly underperforming the market a year ago.

The overriding concern is that artificial intelligence will eventually displace key pieces of the enterprise stack, as IT buyers turn to AI agents to handle tasks currently handled by software vendors, both large and small. Those fears were amplified last week when Anthropic's Claude launched an AI agent tool named Cowork that is aimed at the enterprise customer.

A senior investor at a large private equity fund who asked not to be named in order to speak candidly on the subject said the disruption in software is happening today and will force several midsized software companies to seek financing options, potentially spurring acquisitions by private equity.

Orlando Bravo, co-founder of software-focused buyout firm Thoma Bravo, is looking to buy the dip, and sees value in companies that are building their own agentic solutions to work with their existing systems.

"We're seeing just incredible buying opportunities right now," Bravo told CNBC's Sara Eisen in Davos on Wednesday. He said his firm is doing deals and "will be a lot more active."

While investors like Bravo remain bullish on software in an AI-dominated world, analyst Jackson Ader at KeyBanc sees real vulnerabilities. He conducted an analysis of the major threats facing software in August, and said then that seat-based application companies like Monday.com, Asana and Sprout Social are the most exposed. All three stocks have seen double-digit drops in 2026.

In that same note to clients, Bader said those companies aren't tied to an anchor system of record like enterprise resource planning, or ERP, and customer relationship management, or CRM, and have yet to become multiproduct platforms. Representatives from Monday, Asana and Sprout didn't respond to requests for comment.

Even companies with a wider breadth of products and more established enterprise footprint are facing significant market skepticism.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has spent months defending his company and trying to reassure investors that it is well-positioned in AI.

In Davos, Benioff told Eisen that the company's latest quarter was "the best quarter we've ever had in our careers" and that "we're one of the largest cash-producing companies in the world."

"But it's not enough," Benioff said, referring to the market action. "Because if you don't produce a large language model, you're evidently not in fashion right now."

ServiceNow is responding to the pressure by joining the potential competition. On Wednesday, the company announced a deal with OpenAI to use its models to offer AI agents to business customers.

The news didn't ease concerns. ServiceNow shares dropped for six consecutive trading days before rising on Thursday, and are down 17% in January.

HubSpot, Atlassian and Braze are having an even worse start to the year, with shares of each down more than 20%.

Rishi Jaluria, an analyst at at RBC Capital Markets, told CNBC that the recent pullback in software stocks could force certain companies to "explore strategic alternatives" and that any new deals that don't have a compelling AI angle won't gain much traction with investors.

In a note published in late November, Jaluria highlighted Asana, Box and DocuSign as potential acquisition targets in software. The companies didn't respond to requests for comment.

With tech earnings season kicking into high gear next week, Wall Street will start to get a clearer picture of where particular companies stand in adopting AI or getting swallowed by it.

Luria said one of the crucial questions is how quickly AI agents like Claude's Cowork go beyond developing new code and actually automate different parts of the software lifecycle. That timeline will be critical in understanding the reality of the AI threat and how soon cloud software companies might feel the pain.

— CNBC's Noah Broder contributed to this report.

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