Lionel Grealou

In an AI-hyped market, is industrial software still strategic infrastructure, or is it being recast as a vulnerable application layer? When Dassault Systèmes lost 20.8% in a single session after its February 11, 2026 results, the immediate explanation seemed obvious: growth disappointed, guidance overestimated results, and the market punished the stock.

At ACE 2026, Aras reframed AI as a test of data integrity, architecture, and human intelligence—not a shortcut to transformation. ACE 2026 focused less on spectacle and more on clarity. Across sessions—from Lauritsen to guest speaker Pınar Seyhan Demirdag, Generative AI expert and Co-Founder and CEO of Cuebric—a consistent position emerged: AI amplifies the foundation already in place. Lauritsen described the current moment as an AI-driven revolution.

Engineering systems of record are not being eliminated—they are being subjected to structural testing. When Reuters reported in September 2025 that Klarna moved away from Salesforce, citing approximately $2 million in annual savings as part of a shift toward internally developed, AI-enabled tools, the reaction was predictable. The narrative quickly solidified into a familiar headline: AI is replacing SaaS. For engineering organizations, that interpretation misses the core point.