Investment Firm CEO Tells Thousands in Conference Audience That 60% of Them Will Be ‘Looking for Work’ Next Year – Vista Equity Partners CEO Robert F. Smith said on Thursday that 60% of the 5,500 attendees at the SuperReturn conference will be out of work next year.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/vista-ceo-tells-superreturn-attendees-ai-will-take-your-job/492825
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From the article
Robert F. Smith, the CEO of investment firm Vista Equity Partners, said on Thursday that AI will overturn the job market and lead to [layoffs](https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/microsoft-layoffs-hundreds-more-jobs-cut-at-headquarters/492675) for most finance professionals.
Speaking at the SuperReturn International private capital conference in Berlin, which attracted [over 5,500 attendees](https://informaconnect.com/superreturn-international/), Smith predicted that by next year, 40% of finance professionals at the event would be using [AI agents](https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/openai-ceo-sam-altman-ai-agents-are-like-junior-employees/492687) while the remaining 60% would be searching for new employment. AI agents are programs that run autonomously to perform complex, multi-step tasks.
Get me an AI agent that figures out what I owe on my taxes every year and then get back to me.
I wonder what they’ll say when the AI becomes able to not only do the tasks in stead of the humans, but the profiting as well. What will then be the necessity of human CEOs and investors?
Reminds me of the office episode where they tell a branch they are being downsized
He wouldn’t happen to be CEO of a company that sells services to people who fear for their economic future would he,
Having worked in that industry, I’m going to agree. The most successful advisors are normally the best at looking out for their own self interest and are just sales people with no background in finance. AI can easily manage assets better than they do, hell most of them can’t outperform an index after, especially after fees are extracted. The back office just pushes paper. Analysts could easily be cut in half and managers make their decisions based purely on revenue. Asset allocation and life insurance is an easy formula that is based on goals and age.
I’m fairy certain this will be the first industry completely transformed by AI.
I think this guy missed the memo that making short term prediction like this will only make him look stupid in 12 months when it doesn’t happen.
If he had said 3-5 years, everyone will have forgotten by then, but 12 months people will remember.
Yeah, in case you didn’t realize by now, we’re all fucked
I feel like these guys get some sort of perverse pleasure out of talking to people like this.
Ah yes… the all knowing private equity firm who surely understands technology and makes sound predictions all the time.
These guys do well on the CCAT and make it their whole personality.
AI exec here – 15 yrs in banking. I don’t know which specific solution he is referring to, but it’s not that easy to replace people with AI. Trading l, portfolio management, sales and client relationship management are not easily outsourced.
However, many back office functions can be replaced : it will take 3 to 5 years before we see significant contractions, but I do believe there will be a recession next year and firms will hold off hiring new people, instead investing in means to automate as many jobs as possible. this way they can reward shareholders, CEOs with even more money.
I feel as if these CEOs and tech leaders are explaining what an AI could do, when compared against humans and within a trading and operational environment like we have today. None of them can explain how these AI tools will perform when ALL institutions are using them, because it would be a chaotic storm of AI decisions and analysis, the state of which would be obsolete by the time a human even read a report. A world that operates this way would not be in human control -similar to how an ocean is not in our control. Our best bet is to predict, set a course, and ride the waves. Our hope would be that in aggregate the AI storm would reveal general patterns, enough for us to try and make our predictions as to how to navigate. The goals, strategies, tactics and outcomes of an AI storm would quickly become entirely its own; it would all be beyond human understanding in the moment to moment. Entire AI categories would be designed to understand the other AIs, but these would be sextants within the great chaos. The AI storm would be an explosion of AI evolution, with unknown outcomes in both its own virtual space as well as within our physical practical space. The CEOs today are children, only pushing for AI adoption because of the short term risk they perceive is likely if their companies are seen as slow, backwards or unlikely to take advantage of any possible gains. When the reality is there is no real gains to be reliably made in the long term, not gains that would leave our civilization intact. What seems more likely is a split in the civilization, where one segment moves on based on its own desires and capabilities and another attempts to survive on its own outside of the influence of the first segment.
Isn’t this Bob Brockman’s buddy who should be in jail for all of the tax fraud him and his friends have been committing over the last few decades?
Everyone should be using “AI” agents. It is a computer, a calculator, an efficiency tool.
“Let me ask AI”…in my team’s line of work, that has produced middling results. The data it is trained on is not great yet, it is constantly evolving, and it requires knowledge of systems outside itself to answer a question right.
It is very good at coming to a conclusion WHEN YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER.
I have instructed my teams to use it to perform tasks, but ease up on asking it questions and expecting correct answers.
Will be a little while before it can fully replace what I want my people to do, and when it does, I will just deploy as many people as possible to face clients directly in person.
Let’s lay off everyone outside of the C suite and our labor costs will be 0! Wait, why have sales plummeted? Just because the jobless losers can’t afford anything?
To mean the people that do nothing but gamble with other people’s money while keeping a portion for themselves might have to get a real job? How terrible. AI is coming for every job like this. If you spend your time analyzing data and using software, your days are numbered.
A) You’re our playthings.
B) You might as well quit before we have to pony up severance.
C) Any paycheck you do receive you should be grateful for.
This guy is either a liar trying to use fear to drive his income or an absolute moron who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Either way, ignore this POS. Fuck this guy!!!
I can see it now, 56 year old William T. Buster III having just conquered the use of his email now has to learn how to use his AI Agent that replaced 50 people he use to manage.
Turns out he has no idea what a prompt is or how to write one that gives him the edge he needs.
I too, can pull out made up statistics from thin air.