Good morning, {{First Name}}! AI has made its way into private equity—but the returns haven’t fully followed. Our latest research finds that 87% of PE professionals are already using AI, while many still struggle to translate adoption into measurable efficiency and value creation.
Meanwhile, the energy transition is becoming a $3.3T infrastructure buildout, and rising U.S. productivity could give companies another lever for margin expansion.
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Monthly Report: AI in Private Equity, Adoption Is Ahead of Value Capture
AI is already embedded across private equity workflows—but measurable value creation is still catching up.
PE150’s latest research shows that AI impact is spread across deal sourcing, diligence, portfolio operations, and back-office functions rather than concentrated in one dominant use case. In our survey of 186 professionals, just 12.9% said they were not leveraging AI at all.
But usage is not the same as value. In a separate survey, 32.8% of respondents said they had yet to see clear efficiency gains from AI, rising to 50% among PE sponsors. The biggest barriers explain why: unclear ROI, weak data quality, and limited internal expertise remain the leading constraints to broader adoption.
The implication for sponsors is straightforward. Competitive advantage will not come from deploying more AI tools. It will come from redesigning workflows, measuring operating KPIs, and proving where AI reaches revenue, EBITDA, cash flow, or enterprise value.
The next phase of AI in PE is not about experimentation. It is about execution.
Read the Full Report HERE
TREND TO WATCH
The Energy Transition Is Becoming an Energy Expansion
The energy transition was supposed to be about replacement. So far, it looks more like addition.
Since 1950, global energy demand has grown more than 6x, from 28,600 TWh to 186,400 TWh. And despite record renewable deployment, virtually every major energy source is still expanding. In 2025 alone, fossil fuels added more energy in absolute terms than solar and wind, even as solar capacity jumped roughly 30%.
The bottleneck is shifting too. Roughly $3.3T flowed into the global energy system in 2025, yet McKinsey argues capital itself is no longer the only constraint. Grids, transmission, storage, permitting and dispatchable capacity increasingly determine whether new generation actually translates into reliable power.
For private capital, that changes the opportunity set. The next energy trade may be less about picking the winning fuel and more about owning the infrastructure that makes an increasingly complex, multifuel system work. More power needs more plumbing.
DILIGENCE CORNER BY 150 DILIGENCE
Is the Product Actually Mission Critical?
Customers saying they like a product is not the same as customers needing it.
One of the more useful questions in market diligence is simple: what actually happens if the customer stops buying?
The answer can reveal more than a satisfaction score ever will. If removing the product creates operational disruption, lost revenue, compliance issues, or meaningful switching costs, the business may have real durability. If the consequence is mostly inconvenience, the revenue is more exposed than management may suggest.
This matters because strong retention can sometimes disguise weak necessity. Customers may stay because budgets are healthy, switching has not been prioritized, or alternatives have not been actively evaluated.
For investors, the diligence question should move beyond whether customers are happy. Ask what would force them to keep spending when budgets tighten.
That is where customer satisfaction becomes revenue defensibility. (More)
MACROVIEW
Productivity Is Doing More of the Heavy Lifting
The latest U.S. productivity data offered a quietly encouraging signal for the business outlook. Nonfarm business productivity rose 1.4% annualized in Q2 2026 and 2.2% from a year earlier, while unit labor costs increased just 1.2% during the quarter.
That combination matters. Businesses are producing more without requiring proportional increases in labor inputs, helping contain cost pressure even as compensation continues to rise. Manufacturing was particularly strong: productivity increased 2.4%, while unit labor costs actually fell 0.3%.
For companies, that creates a more favorable margin equation. For investors, it strengthens the case that future earnings growth may come increasingly from operational efficiency rather than simple headcount expansion.
The corporate data reinforce the point: nonfinancial corporate unit profits surged at a 43% annualized rate in Q2.
The key question now is durability. If productivity growth can remain near its recent pace, U.S. businesses may have more room to expand margins and output without reigniting labor-driven inflation. (More)
