Death of CRMs? I Think Not.
When AI tools started launching in 2024 and 2025, SaaS stocks took a beating.
Investors looked at what ChatGPT and Claude could do and thought: why would anyone pay for a CRM when AI can do this for free?
HubSpot stock dropped. Salesforce stock dropped. The narrative became: legacy SaaS is dead, AI killed it.
But here is what everyone is missing.
CRMs are not dead. They are just getting unbundled and rebuilt from scratch.
And the companies that survive this transition are going to be worth a lot more than they are today.
The New Players Nobody Saw Coming
In the last six months, a wave of AI-first CRM companies raised massive funding rounds.
Day AI raised $20 million from Sequoia to build what they are calling "the Cursor of CRM." The founder is a former HubSpot executive who left to build what he thinks HubSpot should have been.
Reevo raised $80 million from Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins in November 2025. They are building an AI-native platform that replaces your entire go-to-market stack. Marketing, sales, and customer success in one system. No integrations. No third-party tools. Just AI doing the work.
Attio has raised over $100 million. Clarify calls itself the world's first autonomous CRM and raised $22.5 million.
These are not small bets. These are serious companies with serious backing going after the core of what Salesforce and HubSpot have built over the last twenty years.
And the pitch is compelling.
Why use a CRM that requires manual data entry when AI can capture everything from your emails, calls, and meetings automatically? Why build complex workflows and integrations when AI can understand context and take action on its own?
It is a good question.
The Problem Everyone Is Ignoring
But here is what I learned from trying to implement new software at scale.
The real cost of switching is not the software. It is the people.
CRM is all about muscle memory. Getting salespeople to actually use it. Getting them comfortable with the interface. Getting them to trust that the system works.
If you have ever tried to get a sales team to adopt a new CRM, you know exactly what I am talking about.
They went kicking and screaming into the first one. Convincing them to switch to a second one is exponentially harder.
Unless the new system saves them personally and obviously five hours a week from day one, they are not going to want to change.
And even if the new system is better, you still have the training problem.
When you are talking about thousands of salespeople across multiple regions who have finally learned how to use Salesforce or HubSpot, the idea of retraining all of them on a completely new platform is not a software decision.
It is a change management nightmare.
That is the moat that HubSpot and Salesforce have that nobody talks about.
It is not that their technology is better. It is that switching away from them is painful enough that most companies will not do it unless they absolutely have to.
What HubSpot and Salesforce Will Do
So here is my prediction.
These AI-first CRM companies are going to build incredible technology. They already are.
And HubSpot and Salesforce are going to watch them very closely.
Then they are going to acquire the best ones.
This is what big tech companies do. They let startups figure out what works, then they buy the winners and integrate the technology into their existing platforms.
Salesforce has done this for decades. HubSpot has done it. Microsoft does it. Oracle does it.
It is a proven playbook.
The question is not whether HubSpot and Salesforce will adapt to AI. The question is how well they execute their acquisition strategy and how fast they can deploy those acquisitions once purchased.
If they move quickly and integrate well, they will be fine.
If they are slow and the acquisitions turn into shelfware, the AI-first companies have a real shot.
But betting against HubSpot and Salesforce adapting is like betting against Amazon figuring out cloud computing. These are not dumb companies. They have resources. They have distribution. And they have the one thing startups do not have: millions of users who are already locked in.
The Only Way The Big Guys Fall
There is only one scenario where I think HubSpot or Salesforce actually lose this fight.
If an AI-first CRM launches that saves every salesperson ten hours per week, and it does it immediately with no training required, and the incumbents are too slow to copy it.
That would be the Blockbuster versus Netflix moment.
But that is a very high bar. And it has to happen fast enough that the big companies cannot respond.
I have not seen that yet.
What I have seen is really interesting technology that is incrementally better, but not so dramatically better that it justifies the pain of switching for companies that already have a CRM in place.
What You Should Do If You Are Choosing a CRM Right Now
If you are a company that does not have a CRM yet, this is actually the best time to be making this decision in years.
Because you do not have switching costs. You are starting from zero.
Here is what I would do.
Look at the big players and see what they are doing in AI. HubSpot just launched Breeze AI in September 2025. Salesforce has Einstein. These are not bolt-on features. They are serious investments in making their platforms smarter.
But know that their roadmap to rolling out new AI products is going to be much longer than a technology startup focused purely on innovation.
Branch out and look at the new ones. Day AI. Reevo. Attio. Clarify. See what they are building. Run pilots if you can.
Nobody likes to be first to a new software system. But right now, if you are buying net new, this is the time to do competitive analysis and really dive into what the technology can do.
Because once you choose a CRM, the cost to switch is so high that you are probably locked in for five to ten years.
So the question you need to answer is not just "what does this CRM do today?"
The question is "how is this technology going to grow with me, and how much time is it saving my people right now?"
If you cannot answer both of those questions confidently, keep looking.
The Questions You Need to Ask
When you are evaluating any CRM, new or old, here are the questions that actually matter.
How much time does this save my salespeople per week?
Not in theory. In practice. If the answer is less than five hours per person per week, it is probably not worth switching from what you already have. If you are net new, make sure you can actually measure this in a pilot.
How much of this is actually AI versus just automation with better marketing?
A lot of companies are calling things AI that are really just workflow automation. Real AI should be learning from your data, making decisions, and getting smarter over time. If it is just following rules you programmed, that is automation. Still valuable, but not the same thing.
What happens to my data if I need to leave?
This is the question nobody asks until it is too late. Can you export everything? In what format? How much institutional knowledge is locked in this platform in a way that does not transfer?
How long does it take to get value?
If the answer is "six months after a complex implementation," that is a red flag. The best software works quickly. If it takes half a year to see results, you are probably building on top of old architecture that was not designed for what you are trying to do.
Who else uses this, and how big are they?
Startups will always show you their best case studies. Ask for references at your scale. If you are a fifty person company, talk to other fifty person companies. If you are enterprise, talk to enterprise customers. The challenges are completely different.
The Real Opportunity
Here is what I think is actually happening.
The SaaS stocks dropped because investors panicked. They saw AI and thought it was going to replace everything.
But the best SaaS companies are not going to get replaced. They are going to adapt.
And when they do, their EBITDA is going to increase significantly.
Because AI lets them cut costs in a way they never could before. Fewer developers. Fewer support staff. Fewer implementation consultants.
The products get better and the cost structure gets leaner.
That is a great combination for investors.
The people who think AI will kill software are wrong.
The best software companies will adapt with AI. They will acquire the best emerging players. They will integrate that technology into platforms that already have millions of users.
And their stock prices, which have fallen significantly, are probably going to recover and grow once they figure out how to make themselves more AI forward.
This is not the end of SaaS. This is the next chapter.
What This Means for Companies Evaluating CRMs
If you already have a CRM and it is working, do not switch just because something shinier launched.
The switching cost is real. The training cost is real. The risk of breaking things that currently work is real.
Wait and see how the market shakes out. Let other companies be the guinea pigs. Your current CRM is probably going to add AI features in the next twelve to twenty four months anyway.
But if you are buying net new, do your homework.
Look at the AI-first options. Understand what they can do that the legacy players cannot. Run pilots. Measure actual time savings.
And then make a decision based on where you think the technology is going to be in five years, not where it is today.
Because whatever you choose, you are probably going to be stuck with it for a while.
The Bottom Line
CRMs are not dead.
They are being rebuilt with AI at the core instead of bolted on top of twenty year old architecture.
The companies that win will be the ones that either build AI-native from the start, or acquire and integrate AI-native technology faster than their competitors can respond.
HubSpot and Salesforce have massive advantages. Distribution. Users. Resources. Proven acquisition strategies.
But they are not invincible.
If they move too slowly, or if an AI-first CRM delivers a step-function improvement that is too big to ignore, the market could shift faster than anyone expects.
My bet is on the incumbents adapting. But I am watching the new players very closely.
Because the only constant in technology is that the moment you think someone is unbeatable, they get beaten.
AI-First CRMs Worth Watching
If you are evaluating new CRM systems, here are the AI-first companies that raised significant funding in 2024-2025:
Day AI - $20M from Sequoia (January 2026)
Former HubSpot executives building "the Cursor of CRM"
Focuses on AI that ingests all your work data and acts as a virtual assistant
Positioning: CRM that knows everything about your business in 15 minutes
Reevo - $80M from Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins (November 2025)
Replaces entire go-to-market stack (marketing, sales, customer success)
AI-native platform built from scratch, not retrofitted
Positioning: Revenue operating system that eliminates tool sprawl
Attio - $100M+ raised to date
AI-driven workflows and automated follow-ups
Strong in customization and flexibility
Positioning: CRM that adapts to how you work, not the other way around
Clarify - $22.5M Series A (2024)
Calls itself "the world's first autonomous CRM"
Automatically captures meetings, updates contacts and deals
Positioning: CRM that runs itself with minimal manual input
These are not recommendations. They are companies that raised serious money from serious investors and are worth evaluating if you are in the market for a new CRM.
About Molly Means
Molly Means is a business operator who writes about Traction, operations, leadership, and organizational clarity. Her work is informed by experience building and operating companies and helping teams create structure that actually works.
Connect: LinkedIn
