Judgement used to be the currency of private equity.
The sharp associate who spotted the hidden growth lever in diligence.
The partner who intuitively backed a founder others passed on.
The ops lead who made the 51/49 call and unlocked 3 turns of multiple.
This was the game: pattern recognition, gut feel, reps.
And it was a moat… until now.
AI is coming for that moat.
It doesn’t get tired. It doesn’t forget. It doesn’t need 20 reps to spot the signal.
Trained on trillions of data points, it is pattern recognition at industrial scale.
It’ll rank acquisition targets better than your IC memo.
It’ll find pricing gaps you’ve missed for 3 quarters.
It’ll tell you when a portco is veering off track… before finance does.
Judgement........the thing that made PE elite........is being commoditised.
Uncomfortably, if your only value is being the smartest person in the room… the room is about to get very crowded.
The edge now?
Context. Creativity. Cross-functional fluency.
The ability to ask better questions, not just give better answers.
AI will change the job. But it won’t remove the job.
It just means you can’t hide behind “good instincts” anymore.