Lazard: AI Impact on Technology M&A, second edition — the great SaaS bifurcation

Lazard Technology Advisory's 2026 edition, written amid the market reckoning over AI's impact on software: 'AI beneficiaries' and systems of record enjoy strong interest while workflow wrappers face existential risk. It maps the agentic era, where value is defined by proprietary data, workflow complexity, domain expertise and business-model adaptability, with proprietary data from Ramp and Tropic.