GTM Survival Guide 2026: How to Survive the SaaS Apocalypse

On July 28, we met at Google for Startups Campus Warsaw to talk about one of the biggest questions shaping the tech industry right now: how will AI change the way companies build products, sell and grow?

Frank Sondors from Salesforge, Gabriel Fugli from Pipedrive, Rad Dembkowski from Attribute Global Ventures and Damian Góral from Dealme joined us on stage. Each of them looked at the market from a different angle: founder, GTM operator, technology partner and investor.

That mix of perspectives made the conversation much more interesting. Instead of one answer, we got several different takes on where the market is heading and what companies should actually be preparing for.

The main question behind the event was: Will AI Kill SaaS?

It quickly became clear, though, that this was only the starting point.

After several hours of presentations, audience questions and conversations between sessions, almost nobody was still debating whether SaaS would survive.

The discussion had moved somewhere else.

Sales. Distribution. Data. Go-To-Market.

If building a product is becoming easier than ever, where will companies build their competitive advantage one or two years from now?

AI has lowered the cost of building a product. It hasn’t lowered the cost of acquiring a customer.

That sentence probably captures most of the conversations we had that day.

Building the first version of a product is easier than ever. AI has shortened development cycles, lowered the barrier to entry and made it possible to launch new tools faster than before.

That is good news for founders. But it also means the product itself is becoming less of a differentiator.

If more companies can build a good product, competitive advantage has to move somewhere else.

Into sales. Into distribution. Into the ability to reach the right customer and convince them that your solution is the one worth choosing.

That idea kept coming back throughout the presentations.

Frank Sondors showed how AI Agents are changing sales. Gabriel Fugli focused on the importance of clean data and a well-designed technology stack. Damian Góral argued that AI cannot fix a broken process and should support people rather than make critical decisions for them. Rad Dembkowski, meanwhile, showed how investors are looking at these shifts when evaluating startup potential.

Frank Sondors, CEO @Salesforge

Gabriel Fugli, Head of Channel EMEA Central @Pipedrive

Rad Dembkowski, Attribute Global Ventures

Damian Góral, Founder @Dealme

AI won’t replace a well-designed process.

This was one of the strongest takeaways from the entire event.

The presentations covered different areas, but they kept leading back to the same point. AI creates enormous opportunities, but its effectiveness still depends on the quality of the data, the process behind it and whether the organisation actually knows what it wants to achieve.

During his presentation, Damian Góral focused on the Human in the Loop approach. AI should support people, not replace them in making important decisions.

Before automating anything, companies need to answer a few basic questions. What does the process look like today? Where does it break? What are we actually trying to improve?

Only then does it make sense to decide which tasks should be handed over to AI.

People, processes and data are still the foundation. AI is a tool that helps companies use them better. It does not replace them.

What were we really talking about during the “Will AI Kill SaaS?” panel?

The panel discussion closed the official GTM Survival Guide agenda, but for many people in the room, it was where the most interesting part of the event really started.

Instead of trying to force one answer to the question in the title, the conversation quickly moved towards the challenges companies are already dealing with today.

Will AI change the way software is bought? What role will sales teams play when more and more tasks are handled by agents? Will the real advantage come from AI models themselves, or from how effectively companies implement them across the organisation?

This is only the beginning.

We created GTM Survival Guide to bring together people who build products, grow sales teams, invest in startups and test AI in real business environments every day.

Judging by the number of conversations, questions and discussions that continued long after the event ended, one thing is clear: it was absolutely worth it.

A huge thank you to all our speakers, partners and participants for being there, sharing your experience and bringing so many different perspectives into the room. These are exactly the kinds of conversations that push the whole industry forward.

And this is not the end.

We are already working on the next events, where we will once again bring together experts from AI, GTM, sales and technology.

We hope to see you at the next edition of GTM Survival Guide.