47 calls with PE firms reveal people and change management as AI's real bottleneck
alex_verem · x · 2026-10-21
After 47 calls with private equity teams since May — operating partners, value-creation leads, and portco CEOs/CTOs — the author distills what they're saying about AI adoption inside portfolio companies: adoption and change management was named the bottleneck in 16 of 47 calls, with one fund growing its team specifically to embed people on site. Separately, a value-creation lead at a portco with 500 engineers argues teams are too big but won't push cuts without first proving productivity gains. The takeaway: enterprise AI is limited less by technology than by organizational change — which itself requires quantified proof of improvement.
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