This week, something fundamental shifted.

In just six trading sessions, roughly $830 billion was wiped from software valuations. Not because of interest rates. Not because of regulation. Not because of a looming recession.

But because artificial intelligence crossed a line.

AI stopped being a tool we consult and started becoming a worker that acts.

In this episode of The Sunday Signal, David Richards connects three threads that explain why this moment matters:

• a column he wrote in The Times in 2019 about automation and education
• this week’s Yorkshire Post essay on Socrates, writing, and technology panic
• and the market shock now being labelled the SaaSpocalypse

From agentic AI systems that can redline contracts and execute workflows end to end, to the collapse of the per-seat SaaS model, this is not a story about hype or fear. It is a story about recognition.

History shows we panic every time a tool makes thinking easier.

What is different now is that the tool has started doing the work itself.

This episode explores what that means for software, markets, education, and the institutions built on assumptions that no longer hold.

Calm, long-form thinking about what just changed and why it will not be undone.

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