Goldman Sachs is pointing to three areas of technology it believes are positioned for growth as artificial intelligence reshapes the industry.
In a new podcast episode, Darren Cohen, co-head and chief investment officer of Growth Equity within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, says AI is creating new competitive advantages in software and opening decade-long runways in finance and infrastructure.
Cohen notes that SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies are absorbing AI faster than expected and will benefit from the new tools.
“At least from what we see, I think we take maybe a slightly more balanced view, is I don’t think SaaS is dead. I think we’re seeing amazing SaaS businesses absorb AI in a speed at which they’re going to have a real competitive advantage as they bring those solutions to market.”
Cohen contrasts the shift with cloud computing, which disrupted legacy vendors and forced painful business model changes. With AI, he says the transition is less destructive and more accretive.
“I look at it in our legacy portfolio and I’m like, ‘Wow, these are amazing evolutions that are ultimately going to unlock more value.’”
Beyond SaaS, Cohen sees fintech and alternatives infrastructure as an overlooked opportunity.
“One example would be in fintech. If you go back to where we started the conversation, strategic investing, there’s one asset class in the world that hasn’t gone through a digital transformation, and that’s alternatives. And so the thematic around building and backing infrastructure for alternatives just feels like that’s easily a decade to run.”
Enterprise software forms the third theme. Cohen cites tooling, cybersecurity, agent frameworks, and multi-cloud environments as areas where investment will accelerate amid the evolution of AI infrastructure.
Cohen’s view on software echoes the sentiment of his colleague, Peter Callahan. Last week, Callahan predicted that software could rally during the final months of the year.
“I don’t subscribe to the view that software is, quote unquote, dead. And so it does feel like software may have bottomed out over the summer. And similar to that kind of small-cap comment we talked about, that may be an area to watch the upside down the stretch of the year.”