software AM market analysis — 2026-09-03

The clearest read-through in software this session is the growing substitution risk from agentic coding. The AI Agents News summary reports that organisations are starting to replace some software purchases with internally built tools, which puts pressure on vendors whose products are relatively easy for customers to reproduce in-house.

That pressure is not evenly distributed. Analysis from DoHost highlights development workflows that increasingly link coding, testing, staging and deployment into a single automated process. Tools embedded this deeply across the lifecycle are harder for a customer to rebuild internally, which should insulate their value even as simpler point products face substitution.

Subscription economics remain the sector’s structural backbone, and both LicenseSpring’s guidance and the recurring-revenue research published in Future Business Journal frame durability as a function of retention, support costs and infrastructure spend rather than growth alone. On that basis, vendors will increasingly be judged on whether they can show customers a demonstrable return, particularly as separate reporting on enterprise AI adoption suggests many organisations are still struggling to scale AI initiatives successfully.