It’s not just the stocks of software companies that are taking hits from worries about artificial intelligence. In the private credit market, where loans to software firms had become a favored sector over the last five years, sentiment has soured. The concern in both markets is that AI threatens the profit margins and underlying business models of many software companies by reducing the barriers to entry and enabling customers to build their own software. Those worries strike at the heart of the reasons many lenders had for issuing the loans: fat profit margins for software companies, stable customer bases, and...