But this time management has to justify its AI spend.

We've been through cycles of outsourcing and in-housing skill before. This seems similar but for tools and services. Maybe we'll see internal teams taking the reigns back to replace bad-fit SaaS products.

There's still a lot of risk associated with in-housing though (perhaps more than before). That means the real opportunity is for new, leaner B2B SaaS businesses to step in, especially if there's a displacement effect from seeing internally built prototypes of expensive subscription software.