What Happened to Software
Software used to be the safest bet in business. Recurring revenue, high margins, and investors who paid huge multiples for it. That has changed fast. Median revenue multiples for public software companies dropped from the high teens at the 2021 peak to roughly 3 to 4x by early 2026, as investors started pricing in the threat of AI.
The competition is a big part of the reason. Vibe coding tools let almost anyone build an app by describing it in plain English, so a product that took a team months to build can now be copied in days. Two well-known software companies Airtable and Miro recently sold for about 90% less than their valuation two years earlier.
If your whole business is a piece of software, you are now racing against the AI models themselves. So the real question is whether you should still be building software at all.
The Sequoia Thesis
Sequoia partner Julien Bek put a name to where the opportunity is moving. In his March 2026 essay “Services: The New Software,” he argued that the next trillion-dollar company will be a software company masquerading as a services firm.
The logic is simple. For every $1 businesses spend on software, they spend about $6 on services. His example: a company might pay $10,000 a year for QuickBooks and another $120,000 for an accountant to close the books. The next big company will skip the tool and close the books for you.
Also read: Top 30 Camera Angle Prompts for AI Video Generators
AI is now good enough to do the work itself, not just sell you a tool for it. That means the money is in capturing the services budget. Sequoia pointed to areas like accounting, recruiting, insurance brokerage, and IT managed services as places where businesses already pay outside vendors for results.
That last point matters for you. If someone already pays for a job to get done, the budget exists and they already accept outsourcing it. You are not creating demand, you are delivering the same outcome faster and cheaper with AI.
10 Service Businesses You Can Start Around AI
These are ideas, not income guarantees. Each one sells a result people or businesses already pay for, and AI handles a big share of the prep and busywork so you can take on more clients. Pick one and start today with Simplybook.me.
1. Performance marketing. Run paid ads for businesses and get paid on a retainer or on results. AI writes ad copy, generates creatives, and analyzes campaign data so you can see what to scale and what to cut. Guaranteed clicks/conversions are what can distinguish you from the masses.
2. Training workshops. Teach teams or groups a skill, such as using AI tools, sales, or content creation. AI builds your slides, handouts, and exercises, and you deliver the session live. Charge per seat or a flat fee per workshop.
3. Consulting calls. Sell paid one-on-one calls where you solve a specific problem for a client. AI helps you research before the call, summarize it afterward, and write a clear action plan to send over.
4. Business coaching. Help owners with strategy, pricing, and goals. AI handles session prep, notes, and progress tracking between calls, so each session starts where the last one ended.
5. Creator agencies. Manage content for creators and influencers, including scripts, edits, thumbnails, and posting. AI produces first drafts and repurposes one video into many formats, while you manage the relationship and the quality.
6. Local business setup. Help local shops, clinics, and salons get online with a website, a booking system, a Google profile, and automated replies. AI writes the copy and builds the workflows, and you handle the setup and support.
7. Talent placements. Match candidates with employers and earn a fee for each hire. AI screens resumes, writes job posts, and drafts outreach. Recruiting and staffing is one of the areas Sequoia highlighted as a place where companies already pay outside vendors.
8. Career coaching. Help people with resumes, interviews, and job searches. AI rewrites resumes, runs mock interviews, and tailors applications, while you add the judgment and accountability a tool cannot give.
9. Personal training. Run training sessions in person or online. AI helps you build training plans, track client progress, and answer routine check-in messages between sessions, so you spend your time coaching.
10. AI tutoring. Tutor people specifically on anything AI-related, be it AI content creation, AI programming, etc. People are hungry and will be hungry to learn AI in the next few years. It’s still very early.
Most of these are session-based, which means they all share the same backbone: a way for clients to book you and a way to get paid.
Set Up Your Booking and Payments With SimplyBook.me and Claude
SimplyBook.me handles appointments and payments, which are the foundation of any service business. It is free to start, so you can set up your account and test your offer before spending anything.
Create your free account, add your services, set your availability, and connect your payment method. Once that is running, clients can book and pay you directly.
Connect SimplyBook.me to Claude
This is where it gets useful. SimplyBook.me supports MCP, an open standard for connecting AI assistants to external tools. Connecting it to Claude means you can chat with your booking system instead of clicking through dashboards. The MCP connector does not cost extra.
- In your SimplyBook.me admin panel, go to Custom Features.
- Find the MCP connector and enable it.
- Open the Admin AI Assistant tab and copy the connector URL.
- Open Claude, go to Settings, then Connectors, and choose Add custom connector.
- Give it a name and paste the connector URL.
- A SimplyBook.me sign-in window opens. Sign in to your company account and allow access.
You need a Claude plan that supports custom connectors. Once it is connected, you are done.
What You Can Ask Claude
Now Claude can read your real booking data. Try asking:
“Show me my total revenue and number of bookings over the past six months.”
Claude pulls the numbers directly from your account. Then follow up with:
“Turn this into a pie chart.”
You get a visual breakdown inside the chat, which makes patterns easier to see. Then ask the question that actually helps you grow:
“Based on this data, what can I do to improve my business?”
This is real data from your own business, not generic advice. Claude can point out which services bring in the most revenue, which days are slow, and where you might raise prices or add new offers.
Where to Start
Software is not dead, but selling a tool is a harder game than it used to be. Selling an outcome with AI doing the heavy lifting is where the attention and the money are heading. Pick one of the 10 ideas, set up SimplyBook.me for free, connect it to Claude, and let the data tell you what to improve.
Read more: 10 AI Agents People Are Using to Automate Everything
If you want to explore more AI tools, check our homepage. Or visit the Blog for more tutorials and business ideas like this one.
