SaaS is Unbundling ChatGPT in waves

Here is the 1st wave:

Unbundling Excel

First Wave Excel Use-Cases → SaaS Companies

Invoices: FreshBooks and Jobber replaced the classic invoice template in Excel, making billing easier for freelancers and SMBs.

CRM: Salesforce and HubSpot turned basic contact tracking spreadsheets into super powerful sales and relationship management platforms.

Project Management: Asana and Monday .com came from Gantt charts and task lists in Excel to project management tools.

Unbundling ChatGPT

First Wave ChatGPT Use-Cases → SaaS Companies

Customer Support: Intercom Fin and Gorgias took the basic Q&A chatbot use-case from ChatGPT and packaged it into a 24/7, always-on, AI-customer support.

Content Creation: Jasper and Copy .ai wrapped around ChatGPT’s content-writing capability into dedicated features to create blogs, email writing, and marketing copy.

Data Analysis: Humata and Glean use AI to analyze documents and summarize trends, replacing manual data review.

The 2nd wave:

Second Wave Excel Examples

Industry-specific SaaS: Sandbox (childcare management), Swept (janitorial services), and Little Hotelier (boutique hotel scheduling) are examples of SaaS that go far beyond basic spreadsheets and into tailored features for niche markets.

No-Code / Low-Code Platforms: Airtable and Coda let people build interactive databases and apps, something Excel users never dream of doing.

Second Wave ChatGPT Examples

Industry-specific Copilots: AI “copilots” for legal, healthcare, finance, and construction that answer questions, handle compliance, and automate routine operational workflows.

AI Chief of Staff: AI that reads every document, data point, update, and conversation across an organization, then delegates tasks and keeps everyone aligned from the top down.

AI Voicemail & Communication: AI tools that handle, transcribe, summarize, and respond to voicemails and calls.