By Isabelle Bousquette
Predictions that AI tools could help displace established business software are quietly coming true in some segments of the market.
A number of small and midsize companies say they are vibe coding their own customer relationship management software in an effort to get more customized systems at a better price. So-called CRMs are a critical business system for tracking, analyzing and taking action on sales, marketing and customer data, and it's an area Salesforce has dominated for more than a decade.
"We tried Salesforce and it was OK," said Bill Schonbrun, chief operating officer of water treatment company CarboNet. "We did all kinds of customizations, but never got to the place where it did exactly what we wanted it to do." Schonbrun ultimately opted to build his own custom CRM for the 65-person company with the help of AI.
For weeks, software stocks have borne the impact of investor concern that increasingly capable AI coding tools could help some companies displace behemoths with nimble, vibe-coded alternatives. Some of the largest software vendors, including Salesforce, tried to reassure panicked investors last week.
The market panic is overblown, said Stefan Slowinski, global head of software research at investment bank BNP Paribas. It is unlikely any complex multinational would suddenly walk away from a system as entrenched as Salesforce, he said.
A Salesforce spokesperson said "vibe coding CRM without enterprise-grade protections for business data is a high-stakes gamble that [small and medium businesses] can't risk," citing a 2025 MIT research report that said internal builds were failing twice as often as strategic vendor partnerships.
Still, some small and middle market companies are forging ahead, finding with AI an opportunity to build systems that more closely fit their unique needs.
In January, Dave Clark, the former CEO of Amazon's consumer operations and current CEO of supply chain startup Auger, went viral with a post about how he vibe coded a new CRM over the course of a weekend.
"We tried configuring an off-the-shelf tool for our cycle. Too many fields we don't need, missing the ones we do...So I just built what we needed. Took a night and a morning," he wrote.
Critics were quick to point out these apps can often be easier to build than they are to scale, secure and maintain.
That's why many companies who want to build their own enterprise-grade CRMs end up working with a vibe coding vendor, some of whom offer customizable CRM templates companies can build on, said Adnan Zijadic, a senior principal analyst at Gartner.
That was the case for Vancouver, British Columbia-based CarboNet, which worked with OverAI.
OverAI, a startup with five full time employees and $6.35 million in venture funding, offers a conversational "AI Architect," that helps companies build their CRM, or any other given system in natural language, while also pulling in prebuilt components, like permissioning systems and security alerts, said co-founder and Chief Executive Mollie Breen.
Before working with OverAI, CarboNet's Schonbrun said he tested different CRM providers, including Salesforce, but often found issues with their overhead and a user experience that was sometimes frustrating for salespeople.
He added he isn't sure if the cost of building and maintaining a custom CRM -- about $15,000 to $20,000 to build and $5,000 annually to maintain -- was less than the cost of an enterprise SaaS license.
But the custom build offers a better user interface that the sales team actually uses, he said.
"You can be incredibly specific with exactly what you want it to do. And that makes the user's lives way easier," he said.
Whetstone Distribution, a meat processor and distributor in the Midwest, also worked with OverAI after determining it didn't want software that would take a huge part of their budget, lock the firm in for a yearslong contract and require a lengthy implementation process.
So the firm custom built a tool that married sales and operations data in a visual map format for about $10,000, said CEO Beth LaBossiere. Building it out took a few weeks, with two to three people internally at Whetstone working with the OverAI team.
Crux Capital, an early-stage venture capital fund, also decided to build a custom CRM after struggling to find SaaS offerings that fit its needs.
Venture-capital firms are a "unique animal," said Lev Mass, a general partner at Crux. Their "customers," aren't customers in the traditional sense, but rather the startups they talk to in any given year as they consider potential investments. They are looking to identify trends over a long time horizon and stay in touch with companies that might be a good investment, even if it is sometimes years down the road.
Essentially, it is an extremely custom-use case, Mass said.
For the last few months, the firm has worked with startup AnySoft, which provides vibe-coding capabilities and some existing templates for the process. Mass said some portions of the CRM are now in production.
The question of whether larger enterprises will seek to replicate some of these efforts remains to be seen, but it is top of mind for anxious investors.
In its earnings last week, Salesforce sought to reassure investors of its relevance in the AI age, reporting fourth quarter revenue rose 12% to $11.20 billion. Salesforce's own AI product, Agentforce, reached $800 million in the quarter, up from $540 million the quarter before.
BNP Paribas's Slowinski said some of the investor concern is less about customers walking away from established vendors in favor of vibe-coded alternatives and more that an explosion of new, AI-powered vendors could give customers negotiating leverage and put pricing pressure on the established players.
Still, those who have built their own CRMs say large enterprises shouldn't necessarily write off the possibility.
"I think the Fortune 100 will begin to evolve over time," said CarboNet's Schonbrun. "I think it's a myth that big companies can't or shouldn't adopt this."
Write to Isabelle Bousquette at isabelle.bousquette@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 04, 2026 11:00 ET (16:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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