Do you worry about how many employees you might lose to AI? Employees certainly hear words of warning about losing their jobs to this rapidly evolving technology.
And this is made worse by a recent statement by Vista Equity Partners CEO Robert F. Smith that 60% of the 5,500 attendees of the conference he attended would be out of work by next year. The reason? AI.
Whether he is right or not, and if this statement applies to all industries, cannot be predicted. But AI is having a huge impact, and so it is wise to act on Smith’s statement in an ethical way for the benefit of staff and your organization.
This article breaks down what Smith said and what CEOs can learn from it. It begins with Smith’s core message, then offers four lessons leaders can learn from the warning he presented.
Table of contents
Smith’s Core Words of Warning Message: AI Is Inevitable and Disruptive
Smith’s main statement was that “all of the jobs … carried out by one billion knowledge workers … will change due to AI”. On the surface, this doesn’t sound too extreme, but he went on to add a statistic that felt a little more intimidating and radical.
Smith clarified his position by predicting that by next year (2026), 40% of finance professionals will deploy AI agents, while 60% will be job hunting. It’s important to note that this is more than just a caution, but more of a forecast of structural change, which is likely to be accelerated by private equity, which is Smith’s specialisation.
It’s clear that Smith’s message is that the acceleration of AI in all industries is inevitable and will be disruptive in significant ways.
Lesson #1: Lead the Productivity Arms Race
So what lessons can we learn from what Smith said in the conference and in other environments? Let’s start with Smith’s opinions on what he calls the productivity arms race. He goes on to say that AI agents will allow organizations to gain a decisive productivity advantage if they are optimized.
Therefore, the lesson for CEOs is to champion the deployment of AI tools. But not just ensure the organization uses them efficiently, but in a competitive way against market peers to get top talent and achieve a strong market position.
One way to use these AI agents is for financial analysts to use them to research, screen deals, and scenario models in seconds.
Lesson #2: Workforce Displacement and Upskilling
The second lesson CEOs can derive from Smith’s provocative statement involves how the workforce will be displaced unless upskilling is robust and targeted alongside AI skills.
Smith urged CEOs to balance AI deployment with reskilling programs with the following approaches:
- Retrain displaced staff for AI-augmented roles.
- Collaborate with governments and education providers.
- Built internal literacy and ethics training.
These approaches show a less severe and more balanced approach to ensure employees don’t feel too negatively affected by the impact of AI as they learn how to use and not be replaced by it.
Lesson #3: Ethical & Strategic AI Adoption
One important consideration is that there are some CEOs who use scare-mongering as their presentation style, and it’s all down to optics.
A perspective that some have on what Smith said is that there may be a suggestion from Smith that organizations must adopt AI quickly to avoid missing out, when for some organizations, this may not be relevant.
Some organizations may interpret Smith’s words as a sign to adopt more ethical guardrails alongside speed. In this way, they can benefit from the strengths of AI without it negatively impacting their staff.
CEOs can follow these action steps to practice ethical use of AI:
- Begin pilots with clear metrics (productivity, quality, safety).
- Develop transparent AI governance and monitor bias.
- Embrace experiment‑and‑adapt cycles; treat AI investment like another R&D function.
Lesson #4: Embrace Enterprise AI
The final learning point includes enterprise AI, which is largely what Smith was referring to in his conference speech. Enterprise AI is easier to use in larger organizations because it can collect custom data to give more specific outputs, making it especially useful for consistent results for chatbots in customer service.
AI agent frameworks fit into this type of AI because they are modular systems that allow any business to build, deploy, and manage their own autonomous AI agents at large scales. Examples of this include LangChain, Microsoft’s Semantic Kernel, and custom internal platforms.
One of the main words of warning Smith made was that 40% of organizations will have an AI agent, which is quickly happening, so it’s important to invest now to compete against market peers.
CEOs need to take the following actions to get ahead with enterprise AI:
- Invest in enterprise-grade foundations, not just off-the-shelf bots.
- Build cross-functional teams—AI, ops, HR, legal—to govern and expand agent use.
- Start small (e.g., internal help desks), then scale mission-critical workflows.
Conclusion
Despite all these lessons CEOs can take from Smith’s speech, there is one crucial fact to remember: What he said is a provocation, suggesting that AI isn’t optional, but factually transformative, and CEOs must act now. This point is likely to be true, looking at the current AI techscape.
The four key imperatives CEO’s should take away from Smith’s speech are:
- Lead with AI-driven productivity.
- Prioritize workforce reskilling.
- Ground deployment in ethical governance.
- Build enterprise-level AI agent frameworks.
Think of it this way: CEOs who heed Smith’s words of warning will secure talent and growth by embracing the disruption; those who don’t risk disruption will be left behind.
