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Intuit fell 3.7%, Akamai fell 3.7%, and RingCentral fell 2.4% in afternoon trading. The broader selloff was triggered by high-profile AI talent departures from Alphabet and regulatory concerns. Alphabet itself fell roughly 6%, and Microsoft also declined. The sector decline followed Accenture's near-20% single-day drop the previous week after it cut its growth outlook and cited AI compressing demand for traditional IT services.
Why it matters
The market is concerned that AI agents—software that makes decisions and takes actions on its own—will erode the subscription model that enterprise software companies depend on. Salesforce, for example, trades around $152, down roughly 43% year-to-date. Adobe fell approximately 49% over the past year. Investors are extending the logic from Accenture's warning: if the largest IT services firm signals AI is eating billable hours, the same threat applies to the software vendors whose products those services configure.
What to watch
The counterargument is that selling has become indiscriminate. Salesforce is retiring 10% of its shares through a $25 billion（約4兆円） buyback and carries the largest AI revenue line in its category. It is also acquiring usage-based billing platforms like m3ter to monetize AI agent actions. Until software companies can prove that AI revenue scales faster than it erodes the legacy subscription base, the sector may remain under pressure.
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