AI will help young workers 'mature' faster by automating grunt work, Thoma Bravo says, amid youth job crisis

Thoma Bravo's billionaire founder says AI will transform junior workers' roles by eliminating grunt work, despite growing concerns about the technology's impact on entry-level roles.

Orlando Bravo, the founder of software-focused private equity firm Thoma Bravo, discussed how the role of junior associates is changing as the company increasingly utilizes AI, in a conversation with CNBC's Annette Weisbach at the SuperReturn conference in Berlin on Tuesday.

The jobs of junior associates will become greater, and they'll "mature a lot quicker," Bravo said. "They're spending a lot less time doing models or comparables than before...overall, now they really get into investing operations and a much bigger way of thinking about business."

"I bother them a lot less, because at midnight I can do something really quickly with AI instead of [comparables], instead of calling them to do it in the middle of the night, which improves their life anyway, which is what they want," he added.

The comments come amid growing concerns about youth unemployment, with recent data showing the number of young people not in education, employment or training in the U.K. increased to over a million in the first four months of the year.

Young people are facing an increasingly competitive job market in the U.S. and U.K. as companies lay off thousands of workers and deploy AI, resulting in a shrinking of entry-level jobs.

"For young people, AI is going to be amazing, and I'm very, very upset that some people say that it'll destroy entry-level jobs," Bravo said.

"If you define the role of an associate as just doing a spreadsheet, you don't need that, but our associates are now calling on companies a lot more. They're developing relationships with CEOs, and we need a lot more of them."

Bravo explained that it's the first time in his 30-year career in private equity where he has needed to hire more, as AI creates more work.

While some like Bravo are more bullish on AI's capacity to create jobs, there have been a slew of AI layoffs in the past year, with the technology behind over 50,000 layoffs in the U.S. in 2025. Major firms like Salesforce, IBM, and Microsoft cited AI as a reason for job cuts.

Meta said in April that it plans to lay off about 10% of its workforce to offset major capex spending on AI infrastructure this year, which the tech giant said could reach up to $135 billion in 2026.

Meanwhile, Jack Dorsey's Block laid off over 4,000 people, or over half of its workforce, saying it can operate more efficiently with a smaller team as AI automates more work.

As young people struggle to secure jobs, the U.K.'s technology secretary Liz Kendall said the government is focused on upskilling young workers on AI by providing free courses to help boost employment.

Entry-level workers with AI skills can command salaries up to 25% higher, according to the most recent data from the world's largest recruitment firm, Randstad.

"We will help people through the jobs transition, we will give people the skills, we'll redesign those entry-level jobs," Kendall said in a conversation with CNBC's Ritika Gupta on "Squawk Box Europe."

"We've got a goal of upskilling 10 million workers by 2030. That is a third of the workforce, and already we've delivered 1.7 million AI skills courses. The truth is this: you're more likely to get a job and get a better-paid job with AI skills, and that is why we're putting such emphasis," she added.