The SaaSacre: How “Steering-as-a-Service” Will Replace Software as a Service

For the past two decades, Software as a Service has been the dominant model for building and selling tools. We wrapped workflows in dashboards, added checklists and tickets, and called it “productivity.”

That era is ending.

We’re witnessing a SaaSacre: the slow, inevitable killing of traditional SaaS by AI-native systems. In its place, a new model is emerging:

Steering-as-a-Service.

And it will redefine how work gets done.

The Slide That Started It

When we first pitched Jylo to investors in 2024, one slide said everything.

A Photoshop interface - sliders for hue, saturation, tone - but now obsolete and replaced with generative AI. Instead of editing manually, you saw ten stunning AI-generated images instantly. You picked the one you liked. Done.

No workflow.
No tool mastery.
No “learning curve.”

Just intention → output.

That slide wasn’t about design.

It was about the death of software as we knew it.

Why Traditional SaaS No Longer Makes Sense

Ask yourself:

Why is Monday.com managing human work when machines now do most of the work?

Why is Atlassian tracking tickets and documentation when code can be written faster than tickets can be filed?

These platforms were built for a world where:

• Humans did the work

• Software tracked it

• Managers supervised it

AI flips this.

Now:

• Machines do the work

• Humans supervise the machines

• Software must orchestrate everything

Work still needs managing.

Just not in the old way.

From Tools to Orchestration

In traditional software:

• Tools did ~10% of the work

• Humans did ~90%

With AI:

• Machines do ~90%

• Humans guide ~10%

The ratio has inverted.

That changes everything.

The most valuable interfaces of the future won’t be feature dashboards.

They’ll be orchestration layers.

Systems that let you:

• Delegate at a macro level

• Steer at a micro level

• Intervene only when needed

This is the beginning of the new era - Steering-as-a-Service.

Macro Delegation, Micro Steering

The winners in the AI era will master two things:

1. Macro Delegation

High-level intent:

“Review these contracts for risk.”
“Build this feature.”
“Prepare a litigation strategy.”
“Analyze this dataset.”

You don’t break it into steps.

You assign outcomes or high level goals.

2. Micro Steering

Fine-grained correction:

“Focus more on regulatory risk.”
“Rewrite this section.”
“Use precedent X.”
“Tone this down.”

You don’t do the work.

You steer it.

Think: less driving, more navigation.

Why Gen-1 AI Tools Are Already Obsolete

Most first-generation AI companies made a fatal mistake:

They built AI-powered SaaS.

Not AI-native systems.

You see this especially in Legal AI and enterprise AI:

• Feature soup

• Disconnected tools

• Procurement-friendly checklists

• No coherent workflow

More features = “better product.”

Except it isn’t.

It’s just SaaS with a chatbot taped on.

These platforms optimize for buying decisions, not outcomes.

The Real Golden Goose: End-to-End Delegation

What actually matters is:

• Content

• Computation

• Delegation

• Review

• Output

As one connected system.

Human + machine, blended.

Not bolted together.

Not stitched with APIs.

Not “integrated.”

Unified.

Even at Jylo, in the early days, we fell into classic SaaS traps:

• Over-indexing on features

• Over-building connectors

• Under-thinking orchestration

We pivoted fast.

Toward a content-centric platform with:

• AI-first workflows

• Human-in-the-loop review

• End-to-end ownership of outputs with full human auditability

That shift changed everything.

The Failure of “Almost Joined-Up” Software

Today’s enterprise AI tools tend to fall into two traps:

Trap 1: Too Technical

• Endless workflow builders

• Complex connectors

• “Low-code” abstractions

• No relationship to final outputs

Trap 2: Too Abstract

• Massive tables

• Hundreds of documents

• “AI spreadsheets”

• No operational context

In both cases:

Steering is disconnected from results.

Why Markets Are Finally Waking Up

Look at what’s happening in public markets.

Investors are seeing:

• Picks and shovels alongside excavators

• Horses next to cars

• Typewriters next to laptops

Side by side.

And realizing:

Entire knowledge professions are about to be rebuilt.

Law.
Consulting.
Finance.
Engineering.
Research.
Strategy.

Not augmented.

Replaced and restructured.

Many Gen-1 AI startups will be SaaSacred too.

They’re just lucky most aren’t public yet - and can survive on inflated private valuations.

Reality always catches up.

Tools Are Dead. Driving Is New.

In the old world:

You learned tools.

In the new world:

You learn to drive intelligence.

You don’t master software.

You master delegation.

You don’t configure systems.

You steer them.

The competitive advantage won’t be:

• Knowing Jira

• Mastering Excel

• Configuring CRMs

• Building dashboards

It will be:

• Knowing what to ask

• Knowing when to intervene

• Knowing how to guide

• Knowing how to evaluate

That’s the new literacy.

What We’re Building Toward

At Jylo, macro delegation and micro steering are now our obsession.

Everything we design revolves around:

• Intent → Execution → Review → Refinement

• Continuous human-machine collaboration

• Zero-friction steering

Throughout this year, we’re rolling out tools (or rather, systems) that embody this philosophy.

Not “features.”

Not “modules.”

Interfaces.

The Big Shift

Let’s be clear:

This isn’t about better SaaS.

It’s about the end of SaaS as a category.

We’re moving from:

Software as a Service → Intelligence as a Service → Steering as a Service

From:

Managing people → Managing machines → Steering outcomes

From:

Using tools → Directing systems

The companies that win will not build better dashboards.

They will build better steering wheels.

And most of today’s software companies won’t survive the transition.

That’s the SaaSacre.

And it’s already underway.