What Happened?
Shares of e-commerce platform Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP) jumped 6.8% in the afternoon session after Snowflake’s impressive earnings results provided clearer evidence that the “SaaSpocalypse” — a rolling selloff that had erased approximately $2 trillion from software market values since late 2025 on fears that AI would make subscription software obsolete — had been overstated for platforms sitting at the centre of AI workflows.
Snowflake surged 35%, its best single day ever, after reporting that AI accounts on its platform jumped from 9,100 to 13,600 in a single quarter, product revenue grew 34%, and full-year guidance was raised by $180 million. The read-through was immediate. ServiceNow gained 5%, Palantir rose nearly 6%, Oracle and Microsoft each added roughly 3%, and a broad wave lifted the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV).
The SaaSpocalypse thesis rested on a simple fear: that autonomous AI agents would replace per-seat software licences, hollowing out established SaaS business models. Snowflake’s results inverted that logic directly. Instead of AI displacing its platform, AI drove more consumption of it. CFO Brian Robins described Cortex Code as creating a “step function change” in AI revenue potential, and said it was the single largest driver of the full-year guidance raise. Enterprises are not replacing data platforms with AI; they are using AI to generate more workloads that run on those same platforms.
The shares closed the day at $113.16, up 5.9% from the previous close.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Shopify’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 33 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 8 days ago when the stock gained 3.2% on the news that investment firm Piper Sandler reiterated its “Overweight” rating and a $150 price target on the stock.
Piper Sandler’s confidence followed a call with a Shopify agency partner who noted that the use of the company’s AI tool, Sidekick, has increased by 100-200% among merchants. This reportedly led to a reduction in their need for customer support. The expert also mentioned that while new business slowed in the first quarter, it rebounded to its previous trend in the second quarter.
Adding to the positive sentiment, a new AI tool from Brandfuel.ai was launched to help Shopify merchants expand into new markets with locally relevant content, highlighting the platform’s growing AI ecosystem.
