Private Equity
Trusted By Industry Leaders
Embedded and internal AI
Part of the operating model
The AI a portfolio company uses to run itself, tracked as operating expense. Spend by function against plan, a named owner, approved use and efficiency gains.
Part of AI COGS
The AI inside what the company sells, tracked as AI COGS. Cost per customer and product, margin quarter by quarter, and evidence kept current for the data room.
The questions you face
EVIDENCE FROM THE BENCHMARK DATABASE
46.9% of enterprises ran over budget on AI
· The Futurum Group
46.9% of enterprises reported running over budget on AI, against 31.8% approximately in line with budget and only 5.6% below plan
Only 17.2% of over-budget organizations pause or reduce the AI initiative
· Techstrong.ai
Among enterprises over budget on AI, only 17.2% pause or reduce the AI initiative itself, while 48% request additional budget and 43% absorb the overrun and settle it later
61% cut external contractors and consultants to fund AI overruns
· Techstrong.ai
Organizations over budget on AI fund the gap by cutting elsewhere: 61% reduce external contractors and consultants, 60% cut IT support and helpdesk, 58% cut software and application development, and 23% reallocate from a non-IT business unit budget
10% have no formal AI budget and 5.6% do not know where their AI spend stands
· The Futurum Group
10% of enterprises have no formal AI budget to measure spending against and a further 5.6% do not know where their AI spending stands, meaning roughly one in six cannot say whether they are over or under budget
42% would expand existing AI workloads if token prices fell 25% or more
· CIO Dive
42% of surveyed executives said they would expand existing AI workloads if token prices fell 25% or more, while only about 10% of workloads need advanced frontier-level reasoning
More than 4 in 5 businesses report concerns about AI token usage and costs
· EY (via CIO Dive)
More than four in five businesses reported concerns about AI token usage and costs, while 37% still plan to expand the scope of their AI deployments
Your playbook
The portfolio section of the board playbook
The same ten board questions, applied across a fund.
The 2-minute check
Ten questions. Every "I don't know" is a finding.
No email needed. The first five are written for your role. The last five are the same for everyone.
[ 1 ]
How many portfolio companies are in scope?
[ 2 ]
Which of them sell AI inside their product?
[ 3 ]
Does each operating model track AI COGS as its own line?
[ 4 ]
Could each company show its AI margin trajectory in an exit data room today?
[ 5 ]
Has a portfolio company already had an AI cost incident?
[ 6 ]
Do you know what your AI features and tools cost last month, in dollars?
[ 7 ]
Have you had a surprise AI bill or usage spike in the last six months?
[ 8 ]
Does the AI spend number on your dashboard tie to your actual provider invoices?
[ 9 ]
If a team, an app or a customer account went over budget today, would anything alert you?
[ 10 ]
Is AI cost showing up in your board decks, security questionnaires or diligence requests yet?