Private equity billionaire Robert Smith told a crowd of 5,500 investors at the SuperReturn conference in Berlin that 60 percent of them will be jobless within a year due to AI automation. Smith’s stark prediction comes despite mounting evidence that AI agents remain largely ineffective at complex tasks, with nearly 75 percent of businesses failing to deliver promised returns on their AI investments.
What he’s saying: Smith, who runs Vista Equity Partners, painted a dramatic picture of AI’s impact on knowledge workers during his presentation.
- “We think that next year, 40 percent of the people at this conference will have an AI agent and the remaining 60 percent will be looking for work,” Smith told the audience.
- “There are 1 billion knowledge workers on the planet today and all of those jobs will change. I’m not saying they’ll all go away, but they will all change.”
- “You will have hyperproductive people in organizations, and you will have people who will need to find other things to do,” he added.
The reality check: Smith’s predictions clash sharply with current AI performance data and business outcomes.
- Nearly 75 percent of businesses have failed to deliver the return on investment promised from AI implementations.
- AI technology remains notoriously buggy and project failure rates are actually increasing.
- Companies like financial startup Klarna that rushed to replace workers with AI agents have come to regret their decisions as implementations largely blow up in their faces.
What’s behind the hype: Smith’s bullish AI stance aligns closely with his financial interests in the technology sector.
- His private equity fund, Vista Equity Partners, is among the world’s largest, dealing almost exclusively in software and tech.
- Smith maintains a cozy relationship with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and just raised $20 billion for AI spending—Vista’s largest fund to date.
- With billions of dollars tied to AI investments, Smith faces pressure for his claims to either pay out or face consequences when the chickens come home to roost.
The disconnect: Smith’s focus on “AI agents”—essentially large language models designed to complete tasks independently—ignores their current limitations.
- OpenAI’s research “Operator” agent, meant to compile web research into analytical reports, often conflates internet rumor with scholarly fact.
- AI agents currently remain absolutely awful at doing all but the simplest tasks with little indication of rapid improvement.
- Tech CEOs continue doubling down on AI spending and laying off workers despite the technology’s underwhelming performance.
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