The AI Operating Partner role is so critical today that I meet PE GPs onboarding for it every other week.
A general partner at a firm we work with shared that they acquired an AI agency 10 months ago, and it’s already deeply integrated into several port cos. It helps the PE platform IP case too.
On Reddit, I hear from smaller AI augmentation/forward-deployment teams reaching out about M&A within PE. Just received a request from a team of 3 asking for the minimum targets they need to reach to get acquired.
Bottom line: the AI transformation is underway at full speed. If 2023 was still new and 2024 mostly experimental, 2025 already saw a good handful of successful cases, and the start of MCP and agents, with very active rollout of practical cases over the last year.
Everyone has a Claude instance connected to drives, emails, or CRMs, from deal teams to GPs to OPs to portfolio C-level and inside different departments. Repetition goes a LONG way here: implementing the same playbook dozens or hundreds of times, and practically living through how and when it fails, helps mitigate risks and limit damage from blind vibe coding or hallucinated data readouts.
AI operating partner in practice – read below.
Growth Shuttle InsiderSubscribe
The AI Operating Partner Is Now a Staffed Seat Inside PE Firms
Mario Peshev
