“IT leaders aren’t planning wholesale replacements of core systems yet,” he says, but that’s likely to change in coming years, he adds, with more than nine in 10 IT leaders expecting disruption in the software market. AI agents, for example, are replacing expensive UIs and seat-based pricing, and AI-enabled coding is prompting IT leaders to rethink whether they need to buy enterprise software, he notes.
“Most IT leaders expect their current software models to be upended as customer fatigue with vendor lock-in, bloated suites, and diminishing returns drives a shift away from point solutions,” Connaughton says. “A fundamental buy-versus-build inversion is under way as rapid adoption of agentic coding tools enables organizations to build custom alternatives faster and at lower cost.”
The incumbent advantage
Still, incumbent vendors have advantages, with institutional trust, regulatory moats, and data lock-in keeping most CIOs from making major replacements…
