March 31, 2025
What happens when top private equity leaders get candid about how they’re actually using AI? You get a front-row seat to where the industry is heading—and what it takes to stay ahead.
AI is no longer a future play or a flashy add-on. For firms focused on smarter, faster decision-making and long-term value creation, it’s quickly becoming essential. Across the industry, teams are using AI to reduce risk, move more quickly, and surface insights that were previously out of reach.
In a recent webinar hosted by Quantum Rise, leaders from Gemspring Capital, Erie Street Growth Partners, and Progress Partners shared how they’re navigating this shift: what tools they’re using, where they’re seeing real results, and what others can learn from their experience.
Moderator Jeff Reine framed it simply: “At the end of the day, we’re trying to find opportunities to unlock value and create it with AI.”
AI isn’t the first technological revolution to which private equity has had to adapt. Many professionals still remember a time before cloud computing, mobile tech, or even the internet.
But unlike previous shifts, this one is moving faster and touching every corner of the business. While many individuals are using AI to boost personal productivity, firms themselves are still in the early stages. Some are experimenting, but few have a clear strategy. But the pressure is rising.
“AI is changing how we’re doing deals,” said Jerry Graunke, President of Erie Street Growth Partners. “As we are selling or buying, people are asking how AI is going to impact their business. In the next 3 to 5 years, you have to be able to answer that question.”
According to Graunke, that question is coming up in nearly every deal. Firms that can’t articulate their AI point of view risk losing credibility—or worse, missing out on real value creation opportunities.
Each panelist is using GenAI in different ways—some for personal productivity and others to enhance team efficiency.
From summarizing investor decks to breaking down complex legal agreements, AI is showing up as a tutor, an analyst, and even an intern. The tools our panelists are relying on include:
“I’ll get a deck an hour before a meeting, and I won’t have time to read it,” Graunke shared. “But I’ll have Copilot help synthesize the key messages or the areas we want to focus on. That might be page 14 of a 60-page deck.”
“It sounds small, but an hour here and two hours there really allow us to be a lot more effective.”
For Reid Litowitz, Vice President at Gemspring Capital, the bigger opportunity lies in unlocking firm-wide insights. “Today, all of that information lives in PDFs that are in different folders on different corners of the drive,” he said. “There’s a real opportunity to leverage a closed GenAI tool to elevate, escalate, unlock that information, and put it into a usable format… and to uncover insights that directly inform investment decisions.”
While GenAI offers significant benefits, the panelists agreed that using these tools without strong safeguards is risky.
“The people in your firm are going to use these tools,” said Graunke. “If you don’t take the time to create the security protocols, the training, and the consistency, you’re going to find yourself in a position where people have overstepped their bounds.”
Litowitz emphasized the risk of exposing sensitive deal information to public LLMs. “That’s a real concern for us,” he said, especially when it comes to terms that could reveal weaknesses in a negotiation.
That’s why internal policies and closed-system environments are so important. With the right training and safeguards, firms can unlock meaningful value without compromising trust or security.
Productivity gains are a great start, but the real opportunity lies in creating value in new and previously impossible ways.
From reengineering deliverables to unlocking untapped markets, our panelists agreed that efficiency may be the low-hanging fruit, but it's not where the big wins come from.
Brase challenged the group to think bigger. Cost savings are fine, but the real opportunity is using AI to generate new value. The goal, he emphasized, is original thinking—coming up with ideas that haven’t been done before.
Graunke shared how one of their marketing services firms is rethinking its deliverables using AI—moving from internal efficiency to external innovation. “We've got a firm that does quite a bit of marketing services work… and one of the things we're exploring is how do I utilize that data to totally re-engineer the deliverable to the client?” he said.
“We’ve always thought these assets were interesting. Now we can repackage them as a new product line,” he continued. “So we’re seeing the top-line impact just as much as we’re seeing the bottom-line impact.”
Litowitz pointed to similar trends in sectors like supply chain, which he described as having “tremendous data exhaust” that hasn’t yet been fully leveraged. “New solutions are popping up every day to solve niche problems, or even large problems that didn’t exist before,” he said. “This is creating new commercialization around challenges that were once impossible to solve without this type of automation.”
In short, the tools are here. But the shift requires moving beyond automation and asking bigger, more original questions. As Brase put it, "That's the stuff that's gonna break ground."
Most PE firms don’t have dedicated AI teams or data scientists—and that’s okay. The key isn’t building a complex AI infrastructure from day one. It’s starting small and being strategic.
Begin with high-value, repeatable tasks. Look for places where AI can save time or surface insights faster. Then, test, refine, and build from there.
That’s where working with a firm like ours can make a real difference. As Quantum Rise CEO Alex Kelleher put it, it all starts with a few simple questions: “Where can you save money? Where can you make money? AI is just a tool to get you there.”
“We don’t have the skills in-house to do this at the level we need,” Brase said. “That’s why partners like Quantum Rise exist.”
Still, success depends on leadership engagement. You don’t need to be a technical expert, but you do need to be curious, committed, and involved.
“You don’t have to know the answers,” said Graunke. “But you do have to be willing to start.”
Because the biggest risk isn’t starting small. It’s doing nothing at all.
Are you ready to take the first step? Let’s schedule a time to chat.
