Why CEO Bill McDermott says ServiceNow’s 39% stock crash is Saaspocalypse ‘nonsense’ and why AI will make it a trillion-dollar company

Bill Mc Dermott’s time at the helm of Service Now has been nothing if not eventful. Months after he became CEO at the end of 2019, the COVID pandemic shut down the global economy; then in late 2022, Chat GPT kicked off an AI revolution that continues to transform the business world. Throughout all the tumult, Mc Dermott has steadily grown Service Now’s business, which provides online software for companies to manage their HR, IT, and other internal functions. Annual revenue, which was $3.46 billion the year he joined in 2019, totaled $13.3 billion in 2025, and is on track to surpass $15 billion this year. Impressive? Not according to Wall Street, which has punished the company’s stock. Shares of ServiceNow are down 39% this year, and off more than 55% from their 52-week high. On Monday, ServiceNow unveiled a new financial forecast that promised to double revenue to at least $30 billion by 2030. The stock rose less than one percent. Blame it on the Saaspocalypse, the fear that AI will make software-as-a-service businesses like ServiceNow unnecessary in the eyes of customers. To McDermott, it’s a false narrative that misunderstands the enterprise software market and ignores how AI is a tailwind, not a headwind, to ServiceNow’s business. “It’s nonsense,” he says of the Saaspocalypse concept. McDermott, 64, laid out his thinking in an interview with Fortune on Wednesday, phoning in from the company’s annual Knowledge conference in Las Vegas where ServiceNow rolled out a variety of new products. The disconnect between Wall Street and “Main Street customers” is frustrating, acknowledged McDermott, a Long Island, New York native with the accent to match. Still, he maintained that the stock’s drubbing would not shake him. “I have walked over tougher challenges than that on my way to a fight. That’s the story of my life, man,” he said. “I ain’t going anywhere. I can take anybody’s blows and still come out on top.” As evidence of his resolve, he pointed to his purchase of $3 milli