Intuit was an AI pioneer. Why its stock became a SaaSpocalypse casualty

Does being an early adopter to AI protect a company in an AI-induced market panic?

Apparently not, based on the experience of Intuit, best known for TurboTax and QuickBooks—and the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 as this year opened. It was a twist in fate for the software company: Intuit is a big name in tax and personal accounting software, and its stock is Wall Street royalty, smashing the S&P Index over the company’s 33 years as a publicly traded company. But in January and February, even as tax preparation season began, it took a drubbing in a market scare—the so-called SaaSpocalypse. Investors were suddenly gripped with the fear that AI would annihilate software companies of every kind.

For Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi, the stock’s plunge was painfully ironic. Far from being caught off guard by AI, he was an early AI adopter. Years before most CEOs, he made AI a centerpiece of his company’s strategy, seeing it as a powerful tool, not a competitor. He told Fortune in 2020: “In five to ten years, undisputed, it will be as powerful as the impact of electricity and the internet.”

And he didn’t just talk the talk: That same year, Goodarzi laid off 715 ...