Software's Transition to Agentic Enterprise AI (Vista Equity Partners)

Summary

• More than 50 portfolio companies, over half of the portfolio, have Agentic AI products in market, and 100% of the majority-owned portfolio has adopted AI tools.p.3
• Cloud re-rated software from approximately 2.7x to more than 6x revenue, and Agentic AI may drive the next re-rating.p.4
• Workforce access to AI grew from ~40% to ~60%, yet only 25% of organizations have moved AI pilots into production.p.5
• Nexthink's AI ARR increased from $20 million in Q1 2025 to $109 million in Q1 2026.p.7
• R&D FTEs per $10 million of revenue declined 9.5% versus 2023, while R&D expense as a percentage of revenue declined 12.1%.p.10
• ARR per CSM increased 25.2% versus 2023, while CSM expense as a percentage of revenue declined 18.9%.p.11
• Sales and marketing FTEs per $10 million of revenue declined 31.1% versus 2023, and expense as a percentage of revenue declined 15.8%.p.12

Key insights

1. Workday reported more than $400 million in total AI annual recurring revenue.p.6
2. Nexthink's Spark agent has demonstrated an approximately 80% resolution rate on IT tickets.p.7
3. SimplePractice's AI NoteTaker has more than 25,000 users and is priced at parity with the base subscription.p.9
4. Assent reduced its support backlog by more than 95% and achieved more than 33% deflection.p.11
5. AlertMedia saw a 40% increase in quota attainment after implementing AI sales coaching.p.12
6. Xactly reduced sales cycle time by 26%, or roughly 47 days, with an AI-first value-selling motion.p.12
7. There is not yet a single standardized AI revenue metric across the software industry.p.4
8. Vista organizes its AI measurement lens around AI Monetization on the revenue side and AI Costs and Efficiency on the margin side.p.6