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What if a software company guaranteed the outcome instead of selling the tool? That's the model Jake Saper is building toward, and he's calling it AI-Native Services (AINS).
On this episode of the [Un]Churned podcast, 207. Why Domain Credibility Matters More Than Ever , Jake Saper, General Partner at Emergence Capital, joins host Josh Schachter to share how the next great software company may not sell software at all. They discuss why per-seat pricing is “definitely dying” while SaaS itself endures, how AI will be used to deliver work rather than merely sell tools, and and what it takes to build a real AINS business that’s not just an AI-wrapped services firm.
Listen on Gainsight.com.
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🎯 The [Un]Churned Take: SaaS Isn’t Dead. It’s Evolving Into AI-Native Services.
“The death of SaaS.” “How to survive the SaaS-pocalypse.” Obituaries for SaaS have been making headlines in the wake of AI’s constant advancements. Jake Saper, General Partner at Emergence Capital, isn’t buying the hype. He’s too busy creating the next evolution of SaaS. It’s a model he’s called AI-Native Services (AINS).
“I don’t think SaaS is dead. I think the per-seat pricing model is definitely dying, and will go away. But the enduring value that software providers play in certain industries, particularly regulated industries, I think will endure.”
On the [Un]Churned episode, “Why Domain Credibility Matters More Than Ever”, Jake Saper shared his viewpoint that customers never wanted software for its own sake. They bought software because they wanted an outcome. As AI can perform more of the underlying work, the value proposition shifts from selling a tool to delivering results.
Don’t Sell the Fish Pole, Sell the Fish
An AINS company uses AI to deliver an existing service better, faster, and more cheaply than the incumbent, while pricing based on results rather than seats. The key distinction from everything else being marketed right now is that AINS companies don’t sell software for customers to operate. They perform the service themselves.
“We’re now in a world where AI can do much of the work itself. And so selling a tool doesn’t make as much sense anymore. We don’t want to sell the fishing pole. We want to sell the fish.”
Not to be confused with professional services, AINS companies stake their claim on carrying out the work, not just deploying the software. Domain credibility plays a key role here. A true AINS company doesn’t just wrap AI around human labor. It provides a credible path to AI doing the majority of the work, rising leverage per service employee, and ultimately software-like margins. It also requires a difficult cultural transition, as AINS companies need to build a technology platform and a high-quality services operation at the same time.
What AINS Looks Like IRL
Early examples of AINS are in industries where the incumbent service is expensive, slow, and rely heavily on human involvement.
Mechanical Orchard helps large enterprises move legacy software to the cloud through extensive mainframe migrations. Their AINS offering takes the load off customers’ IT teams by bringing migration in-house and using AI to speed up the process. Now, instead of, “Here’s our software, we’ll work with your IT team to migrate your mainframe,” Mechanical Orchard can say, “You need your mainframe migrated. Let us take care of it. Not only can we do it faster with our software and AI, but we’re experts in this field.”
Hanover Park, another one of Jake’s portcos, uses AINS to automate the complex, repetitive tasks involved in fund administration. By replacing manual spreadsheet checks, and email workflows with AI-driven agents, they now deliver a service where AI handles the prep and their expert accountants review the work.
Jake also pointed to Gainsight as the “first major SaaS company” taking part in the AINS transition, moving from selling software that helps customers manage their post-sales motion to delivering that motion as a service. The industries vary, but the value proposition remains that AINS providers own the outcome.
“There is a kind of wild future where technology vendors look less like ‘I sell you code.’ Instead, it could look more like ‘I am an insurance carrier, and I am guaranteeing financially some outcome you’re hiring me to perform.”
The “Wild Future” is Closer Than You Think
As AI-Native Services and the technology that surrounds it continue to reshape the tech industry, Customer Success (CS) faces both a mounting challenge and a tremendous opportunity. Instead of a playbook built around driving adoption and renewals, the focus shifts to ensuring customers achieve tangible, measurable outcomes.
The companies exploring AINS are still writing the playbook as they go, but you’ll probably start seeing a lot more fish and fewer fishing poles soon.
🎧 Listen for These Moments
Revenue leaders interested in how AI is changing sales enablement and rep ramp will learn a lot in this episode. Here are three moments to listen for in this week’s episode:
The mirage PMF warning: Jake's specific definition of what separates a real AINS business from a professional services firm with a good deck, and the gross margin thresholds that tell you which one you're looking at.
Open weight models: why Jake co-authored a letter with NVIDIA and Microsoft supporting open weight models, and what cheaper, customizable tokens mean specifically for AINS businesses trying to hit software-level margins.
The Embarcadero walk: the moment Chuck Ganapathi told Jake that Gainsight was making the AINS transition, and why it caught him off guard.
🔎 Where to Find the Speakers
Jake Saper — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakesaper/
Josh Schachter — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/
📎 Referenced in This Episode
Emergence Capital — venture capital firm focused on early-stage enterprise software and AI Native Services companies
“The AI Native Services Playbook” — Jake’s definitive guide to the AINS business model
Mechanical Orchard — AI native service that automates mainframe migrations for large enterprises
Hanover Park — AI native service providing fund administration for private equity and venture capital firms
Gainsight — customer retention platform and the first major SaaS company making the transition to AI Native Services
“The Death of Deloitte” — Jake’s foundational piece on how AI Native Services are disrupting legacy professional services firms
“Why We Signed an Industry-Wide Letter on Open Weights” — Emergence Capital’s case for open weight models and what they mean for the future of AINS businesses
Wrapping Up
To quote Jake, “Keep AINSing.”
See you next week 🧠
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