Paper Type
Complete
Paper Number
PACIS2026-2136
Description
On January 30, 2026, Anthropic released eleven agentic AI plugins for Claude Cowork. Equity markets immediately repriced an entire class of software firms. Traders at Jefferies termed the episode the SaaSpocalypse. Drawing on Digital Resilience theory, this study examines how pre-shock business model characteristics predict differential losses across 135 SaaS firms in 18 countries. Event study methodology, cross-sectional regression, and a panel fixed-effects interaction model identify a three-phase repricing mechanism. Market beta governs shock-day contagion, gross margin drives five-day substitutability assessment, and financial leverage prices thirty-day adaptive capacity. Mean buy-and-hold abnormal returns reached -21.31%. The central finding is the gross margin paradox. High gross margin, long interpreted as a competitive moat, may instead signal that firm value rests on replicable software intelligence. These results extend Digital Resilience theory to large-sample capital market data and show that absorptive and adaptive resilience are temporally separable in equity returns.
Recommended Citation
SHARMA, ANISHA, "The Gross Margin Paradox: AI Platform Disruption" (2026). PACIS 2026 Proceedings. 17.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2026/di_entren/di_entren/17
The Gross Margin Paradox: AI Platform Disruption
On January 30, 2026, Anthropic released eleven agentic AI plugins for Claude Cowork. Equity markets immediately repriced an entire class of software firms. Traders at Jefferies termed the episode the SaaSpocalypse. Drawing on Digital Resilience theory, this study examines how pre-shock business model characteristics predict differential losses across 135 SaaS firms in 18 countries. Event study methodology, cross-sectional regression, and a panel fixed-effects interaction model identify a three-phase repricing mechanism. Market beta governs shock-day contagion, gross margin drives five-day substitutability assessment, and financial leverage prices thirty-day adaptive capacity. Mean buy-and-hold abnormal returns reached -21.31%. The central finding is the gross margin paradox. High gross margin, long interpreted as a competitive moat, may instead signal that firm value rests on replicable software intelligence. These results extend Digital Resilience theory to large-sample capital market data and show that absorptive and adaptive resilience are temporally separable in equity returns.
Comments
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