views

AI is about to hit the trough of disillusionment.

Lee McCabe

13 Oct 2025 — 1 min read

We’ve been here before. The dot-com bubble. Social media “revolutions.” Crypto and web3. Same playbook:

• Hype attracts capital.
• Capital attracts consultants.
• Consultants attract grifters.
• Then the floor falls out.

AI isn’t special, it’s just next in line.

Signs are everywhere:
• PE firms bragging about “AI initiatives” that are nothing more than fancy chatbots stapled onto legacy processes.
• Management teams who can’t explain the ROI of their AI pilots beyond “efficiency” and “future-proofing.”
• Entire “AI advisory” practices springing up to cash the cheque before the music stops.

Most AI in the market today is theatre. It looks good in board packs and conference keynotes but does nothing for EBITDA.

And when the hype cycle snaps, the bill will come due. Hundreds of millions written off as “strategic investments.” Decks quietly shelved. CEOs moving on.

But don’t mistake the trough for the end. The 90% of noise will die, but the 10% of real, working AI products will transform business models in ways we’ve not seen since the internet.

Think:
• Call centers run entirely on AI agents, halving cost per call.
• Healthcare diagnostics with 10x the throughput of human clinicians.
• Manufacturing predictive maintenance slashing downtime and inventory waste.

The trick isn’t to avoid AI, it’s to avoid AI theatre.

Investors and operators need to ask one simple question before writing the cheque:
Show me how this makes or saves $1 today. Not in 2030. Not in theory. Today.

Otherwise, you’re just paying for the next shiny PowerPoint.

News (w/e 1/9/26)

Eir Partners Closes $1 Billion Fund Focused on Healthcare Technology Miami-based Eir Partners closed its third fund at $1 billion, blowing past its $800 million target in just a few months. The raise reinforces a clear LP preference: specialist healthcare investors with repeatable playbooks still get paid attention, even as

Deals (w/e 1/9/26)

Veritas Capital Buys Majority Stake in Global Healthcare ExchangeVeritas Capital is acquiring a majority stake in Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX), the healthcare supply-chain software platform used by hospitals and suppliers across the U.S. GHX sits in the unglamorous but essential plumbing of healthcare, where scale and data matter more

Private equity has quietly entered a new sport: competitive talent hoarding.

Every firm now appears to be stockpiling operators the way children collected Pokémon cards. Operating Partners, Senior Advisors, Venture Partners, EIRs—hand out a title, add them to a slide, declare victory. LPs love the imagery. It signals “capability.” It looks sophisticated. It gives the impression of a tightly coordinated

AI isn’t coming for middle management. It’s already rearranging the job description.

The layer of people whose primary function is aggregating information, writing summaries, building decks, and “managing up” is about to feel the shift first. Not because AI is more insightful than they are, but because it’s cheaper, faster, and doesn’t need three pre-meetings to prepare for the meeting.

Read more

News (w/e 1/9/26)

Deals (w/e 1/9/26)

Private equity has quietly entered a new sport: competitive talent hoarding.

AI isn’t coming for middle management. It’s already rearranging the job description.