Thoma Bravo, co-founder Orlando Bravo, said that worries surrounding artificial intelligence wiping out software-as-a-service businesses have cooled, arguing that new AI capabilities are lifting, not crushing, many software vendors.

"The SaaSpocalyse is over. It's finished, no more. It wasn't a good term to begin with. A lot of people have said a lot of strange things about investing lately, and that's one of the top ones,” said Bravo.

“AI is an enormous tailwind for software companies. People were assuming that software companies just do one thing and they stay still. But software companies continue to evolve with infrastructure," he said in an interview from the SuperReturn International conference in Berlin, CNBC reported.

Bravo pushed back on the idea that software companies are stuck with static products and can't respond to platform shifts. Instead, he framed AI as a growth driver that is reshaping how enterprise software is built and sold. 

He also said the firm is already seeing a sizable share of incremental sales tied to AI-driven products, even as companies sort out security and oversight issues.

Bravo said customers should expect traditional software and AI tools to blend into what he described as "agentic solutions" aimed at automating parts of decision-making and business workflows. 

Thoma Bravo's portfolio includes software and tech-enabled services businesses that, in aggregate, generate about $35 billion in revenue and sit within a platform managing close to $200 billion in assets, according to CNBC. 

Bravo said many of those companies are benefiting from AI adoption, and he pegged roughly half of new revenue across the portfolio to AI and agentic offerings.

He also pointed to investor attention in other fast-growth corners of tech, including semiconductors, as areas where he still sees compelling entry points. At the same time, Bravo said the market is still working through open questions tied to governance, cybersecurity and whether newer agentic tools deliver the returns buyers expect.

"It is a period of discovery now, which creates pressure on the whole system," Bravo said.

A recent report from Bain & Company noted that "AI continued to loom as a disruptive factor but also as an opportunity to transform how portfolio companies and PE firms operate."

"For private equity, AI is rapidly becoming one of the most important value-creation opportunities across the portfolio. Inaction, in fact, has become a strategic choice, not a neutral decision. The companies seeing the greatest impact are not simply layering AI tools onto existing processes. They are moving quickly to redesign workflows, strengthen the data foundation, and reshape the operating model to change the economics of the business," the report stated.

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