PE's AI Proof of Concept

Hi, I’m Lily. I created this PE edition of the AI Dispatch for our growing community of thousands of private equity leaders and portfolio company operators navigating AI implementation.

This week’s theme: From AI conviction to AI proof before 2027.

Everyone in private equity believes in AI. That part is settled. What is not established is who is actually doing something about it vs. who will have something real to show for it when 2027 arrives and the market starts keeping score. The firms whispering about AI at summits and the ones carefully yet steadily rewiring their infrastructure are not the same firms. The GPs watching their portcos drown in fragmented data and the ones turning that data into a daily leadership tool, like Renovus-backed Definian did for a 200,000-person tech giant, are not playing the same game. Conviction is table stakes now. Proof is the differentiator.

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What GPs Are Whispering About

Thoma Bravo and NY Fund Weigh AI Risk and Opportunity

At NEXUS 2026, Thoma Bravo's Holden Spaht and NY Common Retirement Fund CIO Anastasia Titarchuk gave a rare dual GP-LP view on AI disruption in private markets. Spaht reported strong Q4 performance across five Thoma Bravo portcos with accelerating bookings despite 30%+ stock declines driven by market overreaction. Titarchuk acknowledged universal AI belief among LPs, but noted that measurable large-scale impact remains elusive. Both leaders pointed to 2027 as the year winners and losers will crystallize. For PE operators, the signal is clear: portcos with sticky, high-retention models are already embedding AI into growth, and that is precisely what protects them in volatility. Read more →

PE Firms Turn AI Inward to Drive Returns

PE firms are building AI into their own institutional infrastructure. Bloomberg reports TPG launched a firmwide AI task force, while Allvue introduced a PE-specific AI assistant for capital calls and reporting. Menlo Ventures is backing Trove, an AI agent platform built for private markets research and memo drafting. BCG frames this as the new competitive divide: firms embedding AI across sourcing, monitoring, and exit planning will outperform those treating it as a point solution. The message for GPs is direct: AI discipline applied inward generates the same EBITDA leverage it creates in portcos. Read more →

AI Becomes PE's Real-Time Decision Partner

Forbes frames AI predictive analytics as private equity's new decision infrastructure, moving firms beyond static financial models toward real-time scenario simulation across macroeconomic, operational, and geopolitical variables. McKinsey data cited in the piece shows firms using AI for portfolio monitoring and scenario planning improved portco operational performance by up to 20%. JMAN Group's Christian Davis warns that data governance is the make-or-break factor: AI output is only as trustworthy as the data discipline behind it. For GPs, the implication is clear: firms embedding AI across sourcing, diligence, and value creation planning are already outperforming peers. Read more →

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Portfolio Gold

Every week, we’ll bring you a new, real-world example of how targeted AI deployments within portfolios are solving persistent business challenges.

Definian Unifies HR Data with AI for a Global Tech Giant

Company: Definian (Renovus Capital Partners portco), a people analytics consultancy helping enterprises transform fragmented data into actionable intelligence.

Problem: A globally recognized tech brand operating across six continents with 200,000+ employees couldn’t trust its own people data. HR, payroll, recruiting, and engagement systems sat in silos. Leaders couldn’t access insights without analyst support, and key metrics like attrition were defined inconsistently across systems, eroding confidence in workforce analytics across the organization.

Solution: Definian reimagined people analytics as a product rather than a reporting function. Working in weekly co-development cycles with end users, they built a unified data stack combining HR, payroll, recruiting, and performance data. On top of that foundation, they deployed a natural language AI search tool letting managers ask direct questions like “What’s my team’s attrition risk?” and receive clear, permissioned answers.

Results:

• Forecast time reduced from days to minutes

• Managers access real-time workforce insights without analyst bottlenecks

• Trusted data enabled more strategic, forward-looking decision-making

• The platform became a daily leadership and planning tool within the first month

Renovus’s investment in Definian illustrates how PE-backed analytics firms can create compounding value inside enterprise portcos: not by adding more data, but by making existing data trusted, accessible, and predictive at scale.

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Lily’s Recommendation Corner

Dan Sundheim on Private v. Public Market Investing in 2026

In this Invest Like The Best episode, Dan Sundheim, Founder and CIO of D1 Capital Partners, offers a rare crossover investor's lens on AI's private market implications, backing his AI thesis with real capital. D1 holds significant positions in SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, and Sundheim frames LLMs not as infrastructure plays but as standalone business models with durable compounding value. He addresses how AI is actively disrupting traditional software, a direct concern for PE firms with SaaS-heavy portfolios, and where he sees the biggest risks, including semiconductor geopolitics. Listen here →

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Lily’s Closing Thoughts

Here is the uncomfortable truth this week's content keeps circling: belief in AI is now universal, but execution is still rare. Titarchuk said it plainly at NEXUS: three years into this journey, large-scale impact remains elusive. Spaht gave you the timeline: 2027 is when the scorecards come out. That leaves one year to move from pilot to proof, from strategy deck to daily tool. The window is not closing, but it is getting narrower, and the firms that treat urgency as a feature rather than a threat are the ones who will be writing the case studies everyone else will be citing in 2028.