Hajra Naz
If you listen to some AI experts—or just glance at the stock market—you might think traditional software companies are in serious trouble.
But Basware CEO Jason Kurtz isn’t buying the panic.
“There isn’t a single piece of data we see that suggests that,” Kurtz told me. “Not one customer has said, ‘We’re going to scrap this and just build our own system with OpenAI.’ That’s just not how big companies operate.”
Kurtz reached out after I asked readers for feedback on whether AI is threatening software vendors. (Yes, I really do read all the emails. Even the harsh ones.)
Basware sells software that helps companies manage financial processes. It works with big names like Mercedes and Heineken and serves about 6,500 customers overall. The company also uses AI inside its own products—and so far, it hasn’t seen signs of customers walking away.
In fact, Kurtz said Basware grew sales by about 20% year-over-year in 2025, with momentum picking up toward the end of the year.
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That doesn’t mean AI hasn’t come up in conversations. Some clients have experimented internally. But lately, Kurtz says, the tone has shifted.
He described a recent conversation with a digital transformation leader at a large European company. That firm had spent roughly €1 million over the past year on in-house AI projects in its finance department. The result?
They couldn’t clearly show that the investment had saved money, generated revenue, or improved the business in any measurable way.
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According to Kurtz, the executive told him,
“We’re done experimenting. We want partners who actually know how to apply AI inside real workflows.”
So what’s his advice for other software companies that are nervous?
First, don’t ignore AI—build it into your products in a way that actually delivers value. Basware works closely with AWS to develop its AI capabilities and even has what Kurtz jokingly calls an “AI czar” to keep tabs on industry changes.
Second, integrate deeply. The more your software is connected to other systems and embedded in daily workflows, the harder it is to replace.
“If we weren’t doing that,” Kurtz admitted, “I’d probably be more worried.”
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And then there’s data. Over its 40-year history, Basware has processed 2.5 billion invoices and tracked about €10 trillion in spending. That kind of dataset can be used to train models and uncover efficiencies competitors can’t easily replicate.
Kurtz’s bottom line: if a software company doesn’t have a clear data strategy—and a plan for how AI will make its product better, not just flashier—it could face real challenges ahead.
But as far as he’s concerned, the so-called AI apocalypse hasn’t arrived.
