The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) plummeted over 24% in the first quarter of 2026, marking its steepest decline since the 2008 financial crisis. However, a powerful reversal followed in May, with the index rebounding over 20% from its lows to enter technical bull market territory. Behind this dramatic swing lies a profound structural bifurcation within the software sector. As the era of AI Agents arrives, traditional SaaS software is facing intense sell-offs, while AI application companies with deeply entrenched vertical industry barriers are experiencing a major valuation re-rating.
Standing at the forefront of this structural opportunity is Tec-Do, a leading AI Agent player deeply rooted in the marketing technology (MarTech) sector.
Market Divergence: When Peak Panic Ignites a Structural Reversal
The massive sell-off earlier this year stemmed from a deep-seated market fear that AI Agents would completely cannibalize traditional software. However, as top-tier AI application companies delivered better-than-expected financial results, market sentiment shifted. Wall Street began to realize that AI is not a blunt instrument designed to eliminate all software; rather, it is restructuring and stratifying the entire industry.
Matthew Martino, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, recently introduced a framework called the “Six Factors of AI Impact”—comprising Agentic Orchestration Risk, Monetization Model Resilience, Ownership of the System of Record, Data Integration Moats, AI Execution Capabilities, and Product-to-Enterprise Budget Alignment. This framework provides a clear assessment of the industry’s divide.
Under this lens, “high-risk” warnings apply to low-barrier companies in traditional low-code development and generic customer service. Conversely, the “unjustly penalized” segments point to companies centered on permission control and data governance. Instead of being replaced, these firms are emerging as indispensable infrastructure for enterprise AI implementation.
Consequently, cybersecurity and data governance sectors have recently seen robust capital inflows, leading the market’s recovery. This exact logic is playing out globally. In the AI MarTech space, Tec-Do has spent nearly a decade accumulating global marketing expertise. By integrating ad execution, creative generation, and conversion data, Tec-Do has built a massive, real-time data processing infrastructure. Currently managing over 400 million ad strategies and 14 million standardized product units, the company has created a self-reinforcing growth flywheel. Its underlying business logic mirrors that of leading data governance firms—serving as the critical new infrastructure of the AI era.
The Industry Inflection Point: Agents Move from Training to Scale Commercialization
The rapid rebound of the IGV Index must be understood through the lens of AI’s evolutionary trajectory. With 2026 widely defined as the “Year of the AI Agent,” the industry inflection point has arrived.
Early-stage AI investments were heavily concentrated in the compute layer, with hardware giants like NVIDIA being the primary beneficiaries. However, as foundation models mature, the industry value chain is migrating downstream. The model layer is commoditizing, turning application software into the new high-value frontier. Earlier this year, open-source agents like OpenClaw and Hermes gained widespread adoption. Tech giants globally have aggressively entered the arena, while vertical sector leaders have rapidly deployed their own proprietary Agent engines—notable examples include Cursor in AI programming and Tec-Do in AI-driven marketing.
Enterprise demand for AI is simultaneously exploding. Anthropic recently projected its Q2 2026 revenue to hit $10.9 billion, a 127% quarter-over-quarter surge, achieving its first profitable quarter with $559 million in operating income. Furthermore, over 1,000 enterprise clients now spend more than $1 million annually with the company. These signals point to a single conclusion: AI has evolved from a capital-intensive training phase into a phase of scaled commercial adoption, where software companies with strong productization and distribution capabilities serve as the primary vehicles for monetization.
Capital markets are validating this shift. Leading foundational model developers have successfully executed major public listings or secured massive funding rounds globally, acting as leading indicators for the re-valuation of the application layer. Ultimately, the value of raw model capabilities must be realized through real-world applications. According to IDC, global IT spending on AI is projected to reach $1.26 trillion by 2029, representing a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.9%. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s “five-layer cake” thesis is being proven true: atop a trillion-dollar AI infrastructure, the AI application layer holds hundreds of billions in untapped enterprise value.
MarTech: The Ultimate Proving Ground for the Agent Business Loop
In which vertical will AI Agents validate their commercial value the fastest and most directly? The answer is undeniably Marketing Technology (MarTech).
Marketing operates on the most direct ROI attribution logic—where budgets are tightly coupled with revenue, and return cycles can be compressed into a matter of hours. When an AI Agent can boost conversion rates by 15% and cut asset creation costs by 40%, the technology ceases to be a cost center and becomes an immediate profit driver. The entire marketing value chain—from market insights and creative generation to precision bidding and performance attribution—naturally aligns with the collaborative architecture of multi-agent systems.
Data shows that the global MarTech market crossed $96.5 billion in 2025, up 18.7% year-over-year, and is expected to climb to $218 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of roughly 17.3%. Global tech giants have already moved to capture this space: OpenAI has introduced native ad features, and Google launched its marketing agent, Ask Advisor. Alongside these players, innovative firms with global competitiveness are emerging, with Tec-Do leading the charge.
Tec-Do: A High-Potential Player in the Golden Age of Agents
Leveraging its proprietary “Tec-Chi” multimodal large model tailored specifically for cross-border marketing, Tec-Do launched Navos, one of the world’s first multi-agent marketing ecosystems. The system features a precise orchestration of three specialized agents—Marketing Insights, Creative Generation, and Ad Optimization—delivering an end-to-end global expansion solution for brands. In 2025, Tec-Do successfully served over 100,000 advertisers, achieving scaled coverage across high-growth verticals including e-commerce, gaming, digital entertainment, and local services.
While overall AI enterprise penetration is still in its nascent stages, the millions of merchants expanding globally present a massive, non-discretionary demand. For the capital markets, the key to unlocking multi-billion dollar valuations is no longer just technological novelty, but the certainty of translating that technology into concrete business outcomes. In this secular wave, Tec-Do, with its deeply specialized AI Agent capabilities and a proven, closed-loop monetization model, is positioning itself as a vital architect in the golden age of enterprise AI.