{"text":[[{"start":9.5,"text":"Private equity investors are turning to AI-generated replicas of software to assess whether acquisition targets have a competitive advantage, as generative AI threatens to upend the industry."}],[{"start":20.85,"text":"Bain & Company, one of the world’s leading advisers on dealmaking, is “vibecoding” — using prompts and AI to write code — to rapidly recreate pieces of target companies’ software."}],[{"start":32.3,"text":"The mock-ups let potential buyers test how difficult the technology would be to reproduce as the cost of building software is rapidly falling, and also understand how the product could evolve."}],[{"start":44.65,"text":"Bain staff have vibecoded hundreds of rough prototypes as part of the firm’s AI diligence work. What began in 2023 as the preserve of a dedicated team of software engineers is becoming a tool used by rank-and-file consultants."}],[{"start":60.65,"text":"“It’s kind of the difference between seeing something in 2D versus 3D,” said Rebecca Burack, head of Bain’s global private equity practice."}],[{"start":69.35,"text":"“We are leveraging vibecoding to show what a software company can and can’t do, to understand where it fits in the value chain and to understand whether it is the actual code that is the defensible part of the business or something else,” she said."}],[{"start":84.55,"text":"Public market investors have already begun pricing in AI disruption, cutting more than a third from the value of leading enterprise software groups such as Salesforce and ServiceNow this year."}],[{"start":96.6,"text":"In private markets, the uncertainty has translated into a slowdown in activity, with the total value of private equity-led tech, telecom and media transactions collapsing 69 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 from the final quarter of 2025, according to data from KPMG."}],[{"start":114.64999999999999,"text":"Software groups have sat at the centre of a decade-long buyout boom, but two Silicon Valley private equity executives told the FT they had slowed new dealmaking this year as they bolstered portfolio companies and stepped up scrutiny of the AI risk in any target they considered."}],[{"start":133.1,"text":"“If it’s in the question box, we’re not going to touch it,” said one of the people. The second private equity investor said a Bain-vibecoded recreation of an analytics platform up for sale had contributed to their firm’s decision to drop out of the bidding."}],[{"start":148.75,"text":"Gene Rapoport, who leads Bain’s generative AI work for PE, said a big part of using generative coding in due diligence was forward-looking, mapping out how acquisition targets’ software products could be reshaped by AI."}],[{"start":162.2,"text":"“It helps investors imagine where things are going in five years,” he said."}],[{"start":168.35,"text":"Burack said the addition of vibecoding had sharpened Bain’s traditional work of testing a takeover target’s edge, as the rapid advances in AI leave buyers struggling to judge which software groups will endure."}],[{"start":180.7,"text":"“Uncertainty is a really bad word in the PE industry,” Burack said. “In software right now, the ask is high and the uncertainty on the bid exists.”"}],[{"start":200.79999999999998,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1782110088_7375.mp3"}