There needs to be an empirical telemetry or a measurement system in place to really know what's happening on the ground. Now clearly, sometimes that technology gets misconstrued as monitoring.
But the whole idea is that the way the technology is architected is that the end user, who controls it, can turn it off like Fitbit. And the idea is not an individual level micromanagement. It is to really make broader operational decisions.
I do not want to comment on what Cognizant said. That was their point of view. The technology provides high quality measurement. It tells you if you are spending time in areas which matter to the business. It also helps you sharply define your time zone. With this technology, one can design his own workday.
Which are some of those areas in SaaS that are being impacted by AI?
All the content-related SaaS is getting eaten up. A lot of the travel-related SaaS is also facing the same fate. SaaS, which is more B2C (business-to-consumer), will face greater stress. B2B (business-to-business) is a much more nuanced discussion in terms of what you are trying to do. And it's not like SaaS companies are also building a lot of agentic AI solutions. But like in most things with AI, there will be parts of SaaS that will get impacted. This is an opportunity to play offence and defence at the same time. Most companies have to get defensive in terms of getting their operating model right and cost-based with the power of AI. And if you improve your gross margins, then you can play offence.
What are your growth plans?
Over the last seven years, we've grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25 per cent. And we are one of the few SaaS companies that was bootstrapped before this ChrysCapital took a majority position in us. We are fairly confident of growing at more than 30 per cent.
Has funding become a sort of a strain in the SaaS industry?
So, there are two kinds of funding sites, the venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE). The VCs are clearly only funding AI-backed standards. Therefore, even if you're doing like a SaaS kind of a product, it has to be AI-backed. Also, the growth expectations have grown up, so that has become constrained.
And now the expectation at the time of funding also is that you'll have a prototype. Earlier, you could raise money on paper. Now with all the ease of code and everything, people expect that when you come even for the early-stage funding, like a seed or Series A, you've got something to show.
In the B2B space, which are some of the areas where actually you can scale up?
If you think about B2B tech stack, there's core infrastructure, virtualisation, data centres, and security. I doubt something will happen there very quickly. And then you have the application layer around workflows. We are operating in the application layer of workflow, observability, and AI adoption, which are likely to see improvement.
How much worried should SaaS companies be due to the presence of Anthropic and Open AI?
You have to deeply understand your business model. And it also depends on how you execute, and the depth of your customer relationships. Can you co-create, co-invent with your customers? For example, enterprises have a lot of legacy. In addition, you have a lot of regulations, integrations, change management, and cultural issues. I think you will have to position yourself on the right side of change, and have your eyes open as there's no point having a very long-drawn plan when you don't know where things will move. The one thing I can say definitely is that enterprises will take a lot more time for AI adoption.
Which are some of those areas where SaaS can score over AI?
I think they're not competing but complimenting. AI can actually strengthen sometimes the SaaS offering and they can reduce their cost and become stronger. However, some of the SaaS which are commoditised, AI might offer that service for free, or LLMs (large language models) will provide subscription services. So, there will be the black holes, and if you are solving something which is very close to it, you will just get sucked. The idea is to move away from it if you're just doing a plain vanilla thing.
 "Ankur Dhingra, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), ProHance")