Larry Ellison dismisses ‘SaaS apocalypse’ fears, says AI will make software better

Oracle co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison has pushed back against fears that artificial intelligence (AI) could trigger a “SaaS apocalypse”, arguing that AI will not make traditional enterprise software obsolete but instead make applications significantly better.

Speaking at Oracle AI World in Las Vegas, Ellison said businesses would continue to use software applications, but AI would fundamentally change how those applications are built and used. “I don’t think that’s quite true. I think companies will continue to build applications, but they will be quite different because of AI. They will be much, much better,” Ellison said.

The comments come amid growing concerns that generative AI and AI agents could allow companies to build their own software internally, potentially weakening the business model of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies.

Ellison argued that enterprise software has historically been incomplete because companies across industries have had to customise commercial applications or connect products from multiple vendors. “Because of AI for the first time, we as an industry, the software industry, can actually finish the applications if we start doing them industry by industry,” he said.

Oracle is consequently developing complete software suites for industries including banking, retail, hospitality and government, with healthcare serving as its initial focus. Ellison described healthcare as particularly complex because of the pace at which medical science and the industry evolve.

He also believes AI will fundamentally change the user interface for enterprise applications. Instead of employees undergoing extensive training to navigate complicated software, users should eventually be able to simply ask for what they need. “There should be no training required to use any of these applications,” Ellison said. “People would still need to train to become doctors, accountants or lawyers, but once you can ask the question, you should get the answer.”

Ellison cited his experience taking his son to hospital as an example of the problem with current enterprise software. He said medical professionals had to navigate multiple screens and systems to access X-rays, arguing that AI could allow users to simply describe what they want to see and have the system retrieve it.

Oracle is also seeking to make AI a deeper part of its existing software stack. Ellison said the company would continue adding AI capabilities across its business applications, adding, “In time everything’s going to be AI.”

Oracle and Nvidia expand AI infrastructure partnership

Oracle and Nvidia announced plans to expand Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Superclusters using Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 systems to multi-gigawatt scale. Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 systems and Nvidia are also now generally available on OCI.

The companies said the infrastructure is designed to support AI model training, inference and agentic workloads. The partnership also addresses a key distinction in agentic AI workloads, while GPUs handle model training and inference, AI agents also require CPUs to execute tools, run code and retrieve data between model calls.

Oracle said customers will be able to scale CPU and GPU resources independently, potentially improving infrastructure utilisation as AI workloads become more complex.

Oracle expands Snowflake partnership

Oracle and Snowflake announced an expanded partnership under which Snowflake AI Data Cloud will be offered as a native, first-party service on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). The arrangement will allow customers to purchase and provision Snowflake directly through Oracle, with Oracle managing pricing, discounts and billing. Customers will also be able to use Oracle Universal Credits for Snowflake consumption.

The partnership is aimed at bringing Snowflake’s analytics and AI capabilities closer to enterprise data held across Oracle’s databases and applications. Oracle said the integration is also designed to reduce the need for custom data pipelines and cross-cloud data movement, potentially lowering associated egress costs.

Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy said the company was “excited to be the flagship AI data platform partner running as a first party offering inside Oracle Cloud Infrastructure”, adding that the partnership would help customers turn their Oracle data estates into an AI-ready foundation.

With inputs from PTI.