Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes is pushing back on the idea that AI will wipe out the software-as-a-service industry. In a conversation with The Verge's Nilay Patel, he argued that AI is actually increasing use of Atlassian's tools, not making them obsolete. The 'SaaSpocalypse' scenario, in which AI builds all enterprise software from scratch, is not playing out, he said.
Instead of seeing Jira and Trello as simple task managers, Cannon-Brookes described them as expressions of a single platform for running business processes. AI, he said, is making those processes more visible and more connected, which drives more demand for the platform. He also stressed the value of design and human users, suggesting chatbots are not the future of work.
Atlassian has not been untouched by AI. The company did a round of layoffs earlier this year, with Cannon-Brookes saying it needed a different 'mix of skills.' But he was also direct about AI's limits, and pushed back on fellow CEOs like Cloudflare's Matthew Prince, who has talked about AI eliminating 'measurement roles.' For Cannon-Brookes, the shift is real but not apocalyptic.