Private equity group Vista Equity Partners has told investors that it plans to cut its workforce significantly, using artificial intelligence (AI) tools either to replace operational roles, some junior analysts and investor relations workers, or expand without hiring new staff.
Vista, which manages more than $100 billion (€86.3 billion) in assets dedicated to software-focused buyouts, will increasingly use technology to handle roles that compile investor presentations, create marketing materials or aggregate data for the sourcing and analysis of new deals, people familiar with the matter have said.
It also plans to automate back-office roles that can be replaced with technology.
Vista had told investors in the firm’s funds that its workforce would fall significantly as a result in the coming years, the people said. Chief executive Robert F Smith had suggested that staff numbers could ultimately fall by as much as a third through redundancies and reduced hiring, one person added.
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Vista declined to comment. A person briefed on the matter said Vista did “not anticipate any material changes” to its junior teams as a result of the near-term adoption of AI.
Vista has been an early advocate of using AI to find savings across its portfolio businesses and has actively encouraged its employees to adopt the tools in identifying and analysing investment targets. It now scores its companies on their use of AI.
The group is also in the process of reviewing its portfolio of dozens of software companies for ways that AI technologies can create new opportunities or present a threat to their existing business model. Its companies either have existing AI products or are building them.
Vista wants its portfolio companies to build so-called AI agents that can automate tasks with minimal human intervention. It was also studying ways that its software companies could move to charging clients according to the usage of their software rather than through individual subscriptions, said the people.
Such changes could help offset pressure on revenues for software companies if AI enables their customers to reduce staff numbers. While Vista saw the technology creating significant opportunities, it had also warned its investors that AI could threaten the business models of some of its investments, the people said.
Vista directly employs about 700 people while its portfolio companies have 10,000 employees.
In June, Smith told an audience of private equity peers that “we think that next year, 40 per cent of the people at this conference will have an AI agent and the remaining 60 per cent will be looking for work”.
“[Vista] are trying to be ahead of everybody in the space. They are trying to get leaner and meaner. There’s going to be fewer people in these seats,” a person familiar with the situation said.
People close to Vista said Smith’s widely reported comments were intended to be “provocative” and challenge finance executives to increase their AI usage. Smith later said that while AI would hit certain jobs, it would also create new ones.
Companies are increasingly adopting AI as a way to find efficiencies and cut labour costs. British telecoms group BT said in 2023 that it expected 10,000 jobs to be replaced or managed by AI as part of plans to slash 55,000 jobs.
Klarna, the New York-listed buy now, pay later business, has said it has shrunk its workforce from 7,400 people to 3,000 by using AI to do the jobs of employees who were leaving the business.
The company had dramatically reduced the number of staff it hires while chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski has said that AI is going to create massive disruption to “knowledge work ... not just in banking, it’s society at large”. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
