The fastest growing AI product in private equity is the slide about AI.

Nothing says “we’re modern” like a 14 point AI strategy slide no one can ship.

You know the one. It appears at the end of the board deck, stapled on after the real agenda, right between “Talent” and “Other”. A handful of buzzwords, a diagram with arrows, and a timeline that starts with “pilot”.

Everyone nods. Nobody asks who’s building it. Everyone leaves feeling current. Nothing changes on Monday.

This is how it spreads.

Not because anyone has a clear belief in value, but because nobody wants to look behind. AI has become the new ESG section. The thing you include so you don’t get the raised eyebrow from the sharpest person in the room.

And the copying chain is painfully predictable.

A big tech company publishes a memo about “AI transformation”.
Consultants turn it into a framework and a maturity model.
Private equity turns it into a value creation slide.
Portfolio companies turn it into a committee and three pilots that never see production.

The theatre looks modern. The operating reality stays prehistoric.

Now add the Big Four, who have discovered the most convenient product in professional services history: selling AI futures.

Not software. Not implementation. Futures.

They’ll sell you a glossy vision of an “AI-enabled enterprise” with a four-lane roadmap, a capability heatmap, and just enough jargon to make it sound like you’re behind if you don’t buy it. It’s always “enterprise scale”. It’s always “responsible”. It’s always “accelerated”.

And it’s usually impossible to measure.

Because the deliverable isn’t impact. It’s optionality. A narrative. Something you can show your board and say “we’re on it” while nothing actually ships.

Then, six months later, you’ve got:
A centre of excellence with no authority
A vendor shortlist with no budget
A data estate that’s still a crime scene
And a pilot that died quietly because nobody owned the workflow

Everyone got paid. The future just didn’t turn up.

Here’s the test that clears the noise.

If your AI plan doesn’t touch cost, cycle time, or revenue in the next two quarters, it’s decorative. It’s a mood board. It’s corporate skincare.

Real AI work is boring and specific.

It lives in places like speed to quote, call center QA, scheduling, collections, pricing discipline, churn prediction, reducing rework, compressing close cycles. It shows up as fewer hours, fewer steps, fewer mistakes, faster decisions. Not a slide.

The best “AI strategy” I’ve seen is one page.

One workflow.
One owner.
One dataset that isn’t a disaster.
One metric that moves.
One deadline that hurts a bit.

Everything else is just a deck trying to keep up with the group chat.