We dodged a bullet in February

Engineering, Architecture & Environment equities dodged a bullet this month. The SaaSpocalypse missed us. Software company stock prices tanked 20-25% in response to new Anthropic Claude capabilities, while Engineering, Architecture & Environment stayed pretty steady (about a 1% drop).

Our industry could be at risk in the future, though. Harbingers of Ragnarok I'm watching for:

• A pattern of losing work by increasing margins. This could mean competitors are using AI to reduce their cost base and underbid us.

• Losing work to small firms we've never heard of. AI-native firms can form quickly and leverage AI for more innovative, cost-competitive bids.

• More bidders on competitive projects. AI reduces the cost of bidding, so firms can pursue more proposals for the same cost of sales.