Advances in generative artificial intelligence, particularly agentic coding systems capable of autonomous software development, are disrupting the economics of the make-or-buy decision for enterprise applications. The "SaaSocalypse" narrative predicts that AI will render large segments of the Software-as-a-Service market obsolete by enabling firms to build software in-house at a fraction of historical cost. This paper adopts a conceptual research approach, combining transaction cost economics and the resource-based view with an assessment of current AI capabilities, to systematically re-evaluate the factors underlying the make-or-buy decision. It makes three contributions. First, it provides a factor-level analysis of how AI reshapes seven canonical decision determinants: cost, strategic differentiation, asset specificity, vendor lock-in, time-to-market, quality and compliance, and organizational capability. Second, it develops a typology of enterprise applications by their sensitivity to AI-induced shifts in make-or-buy economics. Third, it demonstrates that AI fundamentally transforms the governance properties of the Make option, shifting it from Williamson's pure hierarchy to a hybrid governance form that combines code ownership with external AI infrastructure dependency, with qualitatively different economics, capability requirements, and governance structures than pre-AI in-house development. The analysis finds that the SaaSocalypse thesis is overstated for most enterprise application categories; Make is most compelling for commodity utilities and differentiating custom applications in the AI era, while regulated and mission-critical systems remain predominantly in the buy domain.

翻译：生成式人工智能的进步，特别是能够自主开发软件的智能体编码系统，正在颠覆企业应用领域中“自建”与“购买”决策的经济学基础。“SaaS灾难论”预测，人工智能将使软件即服务市场的大片领域过时，原因在于企业能够以历史成本的一小部分自行构建软件。本文采用概念研究法，综合运用交易成本经济学与资源基础观，并结合对当前AI能力的评估，系统性地重新审视决定“自建”与“购买”决策的各种因素。本文做出了三项贡献。第一，它提供了一个因素层面的分析，揭示了AI如何重塑七项经典决策决定因素：成本、战略差异化、资产专用性、供应商锁定、上市时间、质量与合规性，以及组织能力。第二，它根据企业应用对AI引发的“自建”与“购买”经济学变化的敏感度，建立了一个应用类型学。第三，它论证了AI从根本上改变了“自建”选项的治理属性，使其从威廉姆森提出的纯粹层级制转变为一种混合治理形式，这种形式结合了代码所有权与外部AI基础设施依赖，并具有与AI时代之前的内部开发在本质上不同的经济学、能力要求和治理结构。分析发现，对于大多数企业应用类别而言，“SaaS灾难论”是夸大其词的；在AI时代，“自建”模式对常规公用事业和差异化定制应用最具吸引力，而受监管和关键任务系统则主要仍处于“购买”领域。