Private Equity
AI Strategy Day
8am-4pm | October 13, 2026 | New York
Turn AI Ambition into Measurable Advantage
The flagship full-day forum for private equity leaders operationalising AI across the firm and the portfolio. It is not a traditional conference: concise talks, grounded case studies, peer-only discussion and hands-on workshops, designed so you leave with practical next steps, not just ideas.
Please note:
The event is now full. You can still register but will be added to the waiting list.
Focus
Turn AI interest into scalable, measurable impact across your firm and portfolio
Practical
Practical playbooks, real cases, and working sessions you can apply immediately
Accessible
A clearer path from “where do we start?” to confident action in a trusted setting
Independent
Explore AI’s potential with confidence with an open, trusted network and no hidden agenda
Why attend: from capability to advantage
This day is built to give private equity leaders practical command of AI, not theory. Every session is rooted in the realities of deal-making and portfolio value creation, and designed so you leave with things you can use.
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See what's actually working, and what to avoid, from firms already deploying AI across private equity and venture capital.
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Go deep on your world, with parallel tracks for the deal side and for portfolio value creation, so the content fits your role.
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No sales pitches. Every contributor, practitioner and partner alike, is there to show how it's really done, grounded in real implementation.
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Leave with usable frameworks, clear next steps, and peer connections you'll keep using long after the day.
Who’s Attending?
This event brings together 80-100 senior professionals from leading mid-market firms to explore the realities of AI in private equity. Attendees include Partners, Operating Partners, Investment Directors, CTOs, AI Operators, and value creation leads actively shaping portfolio performance.
This is a highly curated group, designed to foster honest, peer-level conversations, not product pitches or surface-level introductions. The result is a day of sharper discussion, shared experience, and valuable connections for leaders in private equity, venture capital, and asset management.
Our Partners
Visionary Partners
Activation Partners
Innovation Partners
Meet the Speakers
Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Apax
Ishan Gammampila
Ishan is a data and technology expert with 14+ years of experience across analytics, ML, AI, automation, architecture and governance, with a strong track record of delivering sustainable, measurable business value.
Director - Head of Catalyst, Hg
Lloyd Hilton
Lloyd leads Hg's in-house AI product incubator to accelerate the development and deployment of agentic AI products. Previously at JMAN Group building data products for FTSE 50 businesses and public institutions.
Managing Director, AI & Value Creation, VSS Capital Partners
Otilia Ciotau
Otilia leads AI risk and opportunity assessments, helping portfolio companies identify and capture high-impact AI use cases that accelerate value creation. Previously she has worked on many significant organizational transformations.
Chief Product Officer, IANS
Paul Henderson
Paul leads the product and technology organizations at portfolio firm IANS. He is a growth-focused information services executive with a proven track record of scaling businesses and accelerating profitability.
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Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
Prerak Vohra
Prerak is a strategic, people-focused leader with 8+ years of global consulting experience, helping firms unlock growth, transform operations and deliver measurable, lasting impact through trusted leadership relationships.
Lead, Artificial Intelligence, General Atlantic
Nicholas Pariso
Nick is leading General Atlantic's enterprise AI platform, powering investment and operations teams worldwide. Responsible for AI engineering, strategy, enablement, and firm-wide adoption.
Kate Crawford, Professor, USC; Director of Knowing Machines; author, Atlas of AI
Professor Kate Crawford
Dr. Kate Crawford is a leading scholar of AI and Professor at USC, where she leads the Knowing Machines Research Group. Author of Atlas of AI, she is inaugural chair of AI and Justice at ENS Paris.
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VP, Technology Excellence, SK Capital Partners
Trevor Ross
Trevor is a data and AI leader specializing in AI development, data-driven organisations and enterprise transformation, helping businesses modernize technology, unlock value and drive measurable improvements in performance.
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Product Manager, Grant Street Group
Teresa Beary
Teresa leads the vision for Grant Street Group's Intelligent Process Automation team, using AI and automation to reshape internal operations. She drives self-service products that reduce support burden and AI-powered improvements for Business Analysts.
Journalist & Founder, Ground Level AI
Sharon Goldman
Sharon Goldman is founder of Ground Level AI, an independent publication and podcast on AI in the real world. Previously she was an AI reporter at Fortune, where she co-authored Eye on AI, its flagship AI newsletter.
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Partner - Data & Analytics, West Monroe
Cam Cross
Cam is a data and AI specialist focused on helping data teams harness emerging technologies. He explores AI applications, experiments with new tools and approaches, and works to push the field forward through collaboration and innovation.
VP Strategic Partnerships NA, NetSuite
Erin Brodie
Erin Brodie is a dynamic business leader with 25+ years of SaaS experience, driving growth through partnerships, marketing, sales, customer success, and ecosystem strategy. She also brings strong communication skills as a former television host.
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Global Head Private Equity Business, GlobalLogic
Amit Soni
Amit helps private equity firms and portfolio companies accelerate value creation through digital transformation, AI and technology strategy, focusing on measurable outcomes, operational efficiency, growth and sustainable performance.
Agenda
Networking breakfast
8.00-8.30
Start the day with decent coffee and conversations among peers who work in your world.
Welcome & PE AI Benchmarks
8.30-8.50
Where the Room Stands: What the Latest Benchmark Tells Us About AI in PE
A fast-paced view of what our latest benchmark of the private equity community reveals about the state of AI adoption, where the field has moved, where ambition is outrunning readiness, and where the biggest gaps between the best and the rest are opening up. The data behind the day's conversation, in ten minutes.
Speakers:
Steve Budd, Founder, AI Pathfinder
Opening keynote
8.50-9.25
What AI Advantage Really Looks Like in Private Equity
AI as an assistant is table stakes. The real prize is redesigning how a firm and its portfolio companies operate when AI is embedded from the start. This keynote makes the case for the AI-native operating model, what it looks like in practice, where the leverage compounds, and how the best firms are getting there without waiting for the technology to be perfect.
Speakers
Ishan Gammampila, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Apax Partners
Moderator: Erin Brodie, Vice President Strategic Partnerships, Oracle NetSuite
Case studies
9.25-10.05
The Advantage Showcase: Real Practitioner Stories
Two practitioners, 15 minutes each, one common frame. A deal-side leader, and a portfolio operator, with a measurable ROI story walk the room through what they built, how they got people to actually use it, and what changed as a result. No hypotheticals, no roadmaps, just the specifics of what they did and what they learned.
Moderator: Amit Soni, Global Head Private Equity Business, GlobalLogic
Turning Live Institutional Memory into IP: Building a Shared Brain
At IANS, a cyber security data business, Paul Henderson has built what the company calls a shared brain: an agentically updated database written from every meeting transcript, decision and client interaction which can respond to queries in real time. He will explain what prompted it, what it has replaced, where the savings and operating leverage are, and why he expects it to carry real weight in an exit process.
Speaker: Paul Henderson, CPO, IANS
AI Product Transformation: Lessons from Hg Catalyst
At Hg, Lloyd Hilton leads Catalyst, the firm’s capability for AI product transformation across the portfolio. He will show how a traditional workflow SaaS product was rebuilt as an agentic operating platform, what changed for the business, and how Hg has turned that work into a repeatable capability it can apply company by company. .
Speaker: Lloyd Hilton, Director, Head of Catalyst, Hg
Panel
10.35-11.15
AI Adoption Is Accelerating, but Are You Measuring What Actually Matters?
Learn why leading organizations are shifting from tracking AI usage to proving business value, and how a new approach to measuring AI ROI can guide smarter investments..
Speakers
Trevor Ross, VP, Technology Excellence, SK Capital Partners
Prerak Vohra, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
Moderator: Cam Cross, Partner, Data and Analytics, West Monroe
Strategic roundtables
11.15-12.05
From Insight to Action: What Counts as Meaningful AI ROI?
Only 49% of firms in our latest benchmark can articulate a credible ROI case for their priority AI initiatives. In a structured, small-group exchange at your table, chaired by a facilitator, you'll test where you're genuinely finding value, what you're measuring it against, how long an initiative should get to prove itself, and who owns the number. Honest about what's hard to measure, specific about what's working, and everyone leaves with one or two things they'll go and do. All before we take lunch.
Activation workshops
13.05-14.35
In two 45-minute working sessions, you'll dig into how AI is reshaping the two arenas where PE actually creates value: the way your firm works, and the way your portfolio companies work. Each session pairs a real customer story with a hands-on exercise at your table.
Workshop 1 - Facilitated by Model ML
Where AI Starts to Compound: From Scattered Wins to Repeatable Advantage
Most firms sit somewhere between individuals experimenting with AI and a firmwide approach their teams rely on. Otilia walks through how her team changed the opportunity screening workflow and what it took to make the output reliable enough to use day to day. The audience will then join themed tables - for investment teams, operators and value creation, and technology and data leaders - to compare what has worked, what has not, and what it would take to make AI dependable in their own firms.
Speaker: Otilia Ciotau, Managing Director, AI & Value Creation, VSS Capital Partners
Facilitator: Tyler Sisk, Product & Growth, Model ML
Facilitator
Workshop 2 - Facilitated by Glean
The Process Blueprint: Finding AI Leverage by Mapping the Work
Two practitioners open the session with how process change has actually played out inside their organisations, one from the private equity firm's seat, one from the portfolio company's. From there, the audience will take one real business process and make it visible: the stages, workflows, decisions, handoffs, inputs and outputs, and the context people draw on to do it well. The map will show where people need to exercise judgment, where AI could genuinely help, and where missing or inaccessible knowledge would hold it back.
Speakers:
Nicholas Pariso, Lead, Artificial Intelligence, General Atlantic
Teresa Beary, Product Manager, Grant Street Group
Facilitator: Ryan Dowler, Head of Field Strategy, Glean
Closing fireside chat
14.35-15.00
Beyond the AI Hype: What Leaders Need to Know
The past six months have seen a historic wave of AI-enabled cyberattacks. Basic security protocols have failed at some of the world's largest technology companies, and AI agents have acted beyond their developers' control. As firms and portfolio companies move into agentic systems, who owns the security risk? How should leadership teams weigh the pressure to move fast against risks they cannot yet understand? And how will the shifting politics of AI regulation reshape the rules? Professor Kate Crawford, author of Atlas of AI and one of the world's leading scholars on AI's real-world impact, sits down with Sharon Goldman for a candid fireside conversation that cuts through the confusion and hyperbole..
Speaker: Kate Crawford, Professor, USC; Director of Knowing Machines; author, Atlas of AI
Moderator: Sharon Goldman, Journalist & Founder, Ground Level AI