27 SaaS Companies List AI Agents as Competitive Risk in SEC Filings, While Executives Publicly Downplay the Threat

Gate News reports that on March 16, this year, 27 software companies listed AI agents as a competitive risk factor in their securities registration documents, compared to only 7 in the same period last year. However, the executives of these companies generally downplayed this threat during earnings calls, creating a stark contrast between the registration language and public statements.

Design tool Figma’s last month submitted a 10-K filing stating that agentic AI “may change the way people access and use digital products, thereby reducing reliance on traditional software applications.” On the same day, during the earnings call, CEO Dylan Field said, “Humans will continue to use software, and agents will too,” and added, “If you’re willing to entrust critical tasks to an agent to execute without supervision, you’re a very brave person.” Currently, Figma’s stock price is below its IPO price from last year.

Customer relationship management platform HubSpot’s February annual report directly mentioned that customers can build their own CRM tools using AI, even highlighting “vibe coding” (natural language programming) as a potential alternative. The company’s stock has fallen nearly half over the past six months. Enterprise HR platform Workday’s early March 10-K filing admitted that the company may face challenges in “maintaining market differentiation,” and warned that its newly launched Flex Credits (a usage-based billing model for agents) “may encounter customer resistance.” Former CEO Carl Eschenbach, who said in January that “AI is a tailwind for us, definitely not a headwind,” stepped down last month.

Adobe’s January annual report also acknowledged “increasingly fierce competition from companies offering generative and agentic AI solutions,” but outgoing CEO Shantanu Narayen still stated last week that the company’s products are “uniquely designed” to meet enterprise needs in the AI agent era. Adobe’s stock has already fallen 28% this year.

This wave of panic has been dubbed the “SaaSpocalypse” by investors. After Anthropic released the new Claude agent tool in February, the software sector’s market capitalization evaporated by approximately $850 billion within days. Since 2005, the SEC has required publicly listed companies to disclose material risk factors in their registration documents. This mechanism objectively allows management to make more optimistic predictions publicly, while registration filings serve as a risk disclosure obligation.