Patchworks had the opportunity to attend this year’s Shopify Editions in Toronto. 

During one of the talks with Tobi Lütke, Shopify’s CEO, an audience question referenced a previous comment from Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella that sparked discussion: is SaaS dead?

In reality, Nadella’s comment was more nuanced:

“I think the notion that SaaS business applications exist - that's probably where they'll all collapse, right in the Agent era…”

If you listen to the podcast where the comment originated, he talks of a future where traditional SaaS applications become obsolete, shifting towards an era driven by AI-powered agents.

At the Editions event, Tobi referred to the way “SaaS is dead” had been picked up as more of a "PR move to gain attention". This kicked off a broader discussion, both during the event and in many conversations throughout,  around the idea that SaaS is evolving, not dying and how Shopify is betting on AI-powered SaaS, not SaaS being replaced by AI agents.

You could see that first-hand in some of Shopify’s product demos , particularly Horizon, the new visual editor and integrating AI to enhance storefront functionality rather than replace it. One standout moment: Shopify’s latest AI tool, Sidekick. The team entered a prompt “Create a product carousel” resulting in an AI-driven change to the storefront , fully working, deployed, on the stage.

Another key theme Shopify emphasised was the unification of their APIs (an API-first ecosystem, direct access between all their APIs ), laying strong data foundations for the AI-powered future. All of this is part of that broader evolution and closely mirrors Patchworks' own product philosophy: everything we build is API-first.

Watching all of these tools aimed at accelerating the eCommerce build (even down to environment copying), one thing was clear: the faster merchants can build with Sidekick, Horizon, etc., the more fragile the backend becomes, unless integration keeps up.

Rethinking the 'Build vs. Buy' Equation

As the shift from build to buy accelerates, we predict an even bigger movement toward buying integration platforms rather than building custom in-house solutions that are hard to maintain and scale.

Why? Because in an AI-accelerated world, brands need to focus on what they do best: bringing great products to market and delivering amazing customer experiences,  not building and maintaining custom integrations.

When store builds that used to take months now happen in days (as demo’d during Editions), integration becomes the bottleneck. That’s where off-the-shelf, proven platforms like Patchworks play an increasingly critical and foundational role.

Why build a fragile, opaque, one off custom integration when you can leverage a platform with a robust orchestration layer and pre-built connectors, backed by enterprise-grade security, observability, and scalability?

The Role of an Integration Platform in the AI Era

AI will assist with builds and consume data from all these systems, yes, but it won’t manage the transfer, synchronisation, or orchestration of that data. In a world where AI agents interact with multiple systems, correct, seamless data flow is essential , and the right tool for orchestrating data across these diverse platforms becomes critical.

Patchworks iPaaS fits perfectly into this fast moving landscape:

• Pre-built Connectors - no need to reinvent the wheel
• No-code/low-code orchestration - adapt and automate at speed, without deep technical effort
• Reliable data flow across every system powering AI tools and apps.
• Real-time sync, so decisions, experiences, and operations stay in lockstep.
• Full Security ( ISO 27001 and SOC 2 ) and observability baked in
• Scalable, flexible infrastructure that keeps backend systems moving at the pace AI provides

Conclusion: Build Your Brand, Not Your Plumbing

SaaS isn’t dead, it’s transforming. AI is making Shopify stores faster to build, smarter to run, and more dynamic for customers.

With tools like Sidekick, Hydrogen, and Horizon, the time to build and iterate on a Shopify store is collapsing, from months to weeks, from weeks to days. But what won’t change is the need for reliable operational data flowing behind this.

With this new agility comes an even greater need for solid integration foundations. AI tools will consume and act on data from across your stack, but as mentioned above they won’t handle the plumbing of that data. That’s where the Patchworks iPaaS comes in.

By orchestrating data across diverse platforms, providing real-time synchronisation, and enabling scalable integrations, Patchworks ensures your operational systems can move as fast as your AI-powered store.

In short: Shopify is enabling brands to build the future of commerce faster than ever. Patchworks ensures your business can scale and operate with it - without wasting precious time and resource building fragile integrations that already exist in our platform.