How to test an AI benefit before putting it in the deal model
Test an AI benefit before it enters the deal model. Separate time saved, usable capacity and financial benefit with a worked example and printable worksheet.
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Insights & Analysis
Field guides and longer essays for operating partners, deal teams and portfolio-company leaders working on AI, automation and operational efficiency.
Field guides · October 2026
Short guides for a specific decision
Each guide takes one question a sponsor or management team faces and works it through, with a worksheet where one helps.
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Does your value-creation plan have the delivery capacity it needs?
Check delivery capacity behind a value-creation plan: named practitioners, available hours, system access and evidence that the operating team can accept.
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Which technology and data dependencies could derail the first 100 days?
Test technology and data dependencies behind first-100-days commitments. Identify missing access, disputed definitions and the next verifiable operating check.
Companion tool: AI benefit worksheet
Essays
Earlier essays
Longer pieces with cited ranges and sources, written for the value creation plan and the hold.
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From "AI on Every Page" to a Scoped Roadmap: An Operating Partner’s 30-Day Path
An AI value creation plan that is "AI on every page" is not a plan. The 30-day path operating partners use to turn the line item into three production-ready scopes mapped to the next 18 months of the hold.
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AI for EBITDA: The 5 Places It Actually Moves the Number in PE-Backed Businesses
AI for EBITDA shows up on every value creation plan, but the impact concentrates in five specific functions. Each one sized with cited ranges, sequenced against the hold, with what is signal vs. noise.
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The Operational Efficiency Imperative: What Bain's 2025 PE Report Means for Portfolio Companies
Bain says "12 is the new 5." With borrowing costs at 8-9% and multiples flat, PE firms need 10-12% EBITDA growth. Here's why operational efficiency is now the only path to returns.
From reading to scope
Turn the insight into an execution path.
Bring the portfolio-company constraint, KPI gap, or workflow you are trying to move. We will help identify the first workstream worth executing.