Be There Before®
For decades, SaaS has been a reliable machine. You put in your subscription dollars, and out comes your software. Predictable. Boring in the best way. Like a snack vending machine, but for software seats. Then, in February, Anthropic dropped Claude Cowork, an agentic AI tool that plugs directly into Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and other enterprise staples—and investors panicked like someone just installed a vending machine that makes the food itself. The market was concerned that if AI agents could replicate what enterprise software does, the subscription model holding up billions in valuations may be on shakier ground than anyone wanted to admit.
Add Block's 4,000 AI-driven layoffs, Anthropic's Claude Code Security rattling cybersecurity stocks, and OpenAI's $110B funding round concentrating AI power among a shrinking circle of giants, and February started to feel less like a month of innovation news and more like a stress test for every stable sector in tech.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR COMMS PROS:
Audit your SaaS narrative now. If your client competes in productivity, IT services, or workflow automation, their differentiation story needs updating before journalists write it for them.
Determine your company’s stability and longevity story. With all the disruption, how is your company positioned to win in the long term?
Be contrarian. If the market is freaking out, but you can implore the world to see reason, find an urgent and interesting way to damper the alarm.
AI players grabbed headlines and influenced top terms across most sectors in February. Anthropic alone drove stories across cloud, cybersecurity, and connectivity, from a government ban to an exploit enabling a major data breach. Meanwhile, the surge in Stripe's valuation and AI-driven layoffs at Block captured fintech's dual reality of growth alongside displacement.
Cloud conversations spiked noticeably in early January as fears of the SaaS market decline took off. It has become very clear that AI is the infrastructure driving profits, product development, investments, and more. AI is no longer a feature that businesses adopt. It's the economic and operational foundation they're building around.
We monitor coverage across vertical trades in three main topics: policy and compliance, investment and funding, and innovation.
Click on a topic below to drill down further into the conversation.
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INK’s VP of Comms attended February's sold-out New Media Summit in Austin. The conversation focused on how indie media businesses build durable revenue models. Speakers from 1440, MarketBeat, and beehiiv pointed to first-party data, audience segmentation, and diversified monetization (sponsorships, memberships, and digital products) as the foundation of scalable media. Communicators, keep in mind that indie creators are treating content less like journalism and more like brand and engagement infrastructure.
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Global sovereign cloud spend to increase 35.6% in 2026
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What Amazon and Microsoft Will Win or Lose From OpenAI’s New Deals
HPE turns finance into the front line of enterprise AI
How AI commerce threatens eBay, Amazon
A hard truth in Munich: Cyber defense runs through Silicon Valley
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Cybersecurity stocks drop for a second day as new Anthropic tool fuels AI disruption fears
The memory shortage is driving up the cost of your next laptop
The Complicated Stakes of the AI Race Between the U.S. and China
What The Insurance Industry Is Getting Right About AI But Not About People
AI remained central in February, but cybersecurity activity climbed as global threat alerts and policy debates intensified. Fintech sustained crypto and Web3 momentum, while Cloud and Connectivity leaned further into infrastructure scale and IoT expansion. The month reflected growing emphasis on security, sovereignty, and deployment at scale.
February’s AI tone shifted toward consequence and control. Fintech and cybersecurity stayed highly active as AI-driven finance and fraud risks intensified. Cloud and connectivity centered on sovereignty and semiconductor scale, while insurtech reflected mounting policy and affordability pressures. The takeaway: innovation is accelerating, but so are the guardrails.
The month reflected a market balancing innovation momentum with governance and risk. Focus landed on AI’s dual reality across B2B tech: acceleration and disruption. Enterprises leaned into automation and infrastructure scale, while debate intensified around workforce impact, sovereignty, and security.
Threads launched “Dear Algo,” letting users dial topics up or down, while Instagram added supervision alerts when teens repeatedly search self-harm terms. TikTok tested a U.S.-only “Local Feed” to surface nearby chatter. These moves show how the social channels are determined to keep users engaged and participating within the communities they have built.
March 2026
Caitlin New
VP, Comms
Helen Murphy
VP, Comms
Caroline Harvey
VP, Planning
Allyson Hodapp
Senior Manager
Lindsay Laulis
Manager, Digital
Erin Eckert
Manager
Lydia Crow
Associate
Kenna Jones
Associate