Key numbers for this seat
- The CEO signs AI purchases at 47 percent of finance-lane operators and 51 percent of investors; the CFO’s share rose from 33 to 43 percent inside August (Executive and CFO AI Leverage Reports).
- 11 percent of companies report no single AI owner; 2 percent at the CEO seat, 15 at finance, 30 at technology, 50 percent in Big Tech and platforms (Executive AI Leverage Report).
- 28 percent of finance-lane respondents have no clear AI budget; 21 percent fund AI from headcount money, 34 percent at the CEO seat and 19 at finance (CFO AI Leverage Report).
- 70 percent of the CEO seat expects AI payback inside six months; 42 percent of the finance seat does (CEO AI Leverage Report).
- 67 percent of senior security leaders name agent access as their top problem; 37 percent have a dedicated budget line; 24 percent at the security seat (CISO AI Leverage Report).
- Investors who can name the AI owner in their portfolio companies see nothing measurable in 9 percent of cases; investors who cannot see nothing measurable in 41 percent (Investor AI Report).
The answer for the private equity seat
The September data is a diligence checklist disguised as a market read. Every tracked construct in the Index is a question a deal team can ask a management team, and the answers predict something. Who owns AI purchasing predicts whether a return will be measurable: named ownership is associated with visible value at four times the rate of unowned. Which budget line AI sits in predicts whether the spend is forecastable: a quarter of companies cannot say. Whose payback date the deck uses predicts whether the plan holds: the CEO’s date is 28 points more optimistic than the CFO’s. And whether the agent inventory exists predicts the cyber exposure the deal inherits: two thirds of security leaders say it is their top problem and a third have a budget for it. For a value-creation plan, the same six questions run in reverse: owner, metric, budget line, headcount reconciliation, agent inventory, in that order, because that is the order the operators say the companies handling AI well have followed.
The six findings, as diligence questions
| Construct | The diligence question | First-party figure and base | Source report | External number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ownership Vacuum | Who owns AI purchasing at the target, and does management agree with itself? | 11 percent no single owner (290); 2 percent at the CEO seat, 30 at technology | Executive AI Leverage Report | BCG AI Radar 2026: 72 percent of CEOs say they are the main AI decision maker |
| Budget Clarity and funding archetypes | Which line does AI spend sit in? Is the target a Funder, Unbudgeted, a Substituter, or a Reallocator? | 28 percent no clear budget; Funders 37, Unbudgeted 25, Substituters 21, Reallocators 18 (290) | CFO AI Leverage Report | KPMG Q2 2026: 26 percent have real-time visibility into AI running costs; Deloitte CFO Signals: 46 percent name cost transparency as top concern |
| Headcount substitution | Is the operating-model saving in the deck real, and does finance agree? | 21 percent fund AI from would-be hiring; CEO seat 34, finance seat 19 (80 and 52) | CFO and CEO AI Leverage Reports | Bain, April 2026: 40 percent achieved under 10 percent cost reduction; McKinsey: 14 percent report AI reduced workforce size |
| Optimism Gap | Whose payback date is in the model? | CEO seat 70 percent under six months; finance seat 42 | Executive AI Leverage Report | PwC 29th CEO Survey: 56 percent of CEOs see no AI benefit yet |
| Security Funding Gap | Is there an agent-access inventory, and a budget to govern it? | 67 percent name agent access; 35 percent have a line; 45-point gap at the security seat (110) | CISO AI Leverage Report | IBM 2026: shadow AI in 43 percent of incidents; 92 percent of AI-breached organizations lacked AI access controls |
| Named-owner value gap | Can the portfolio company name its AI owner? | Nothing measurable in 9 percent where the CEO is named, 41 where nobody is (118 and 49) | Investor AI Report | S&P Global 2026: just under one in four GPs have AI integrated into diligence |
Source: Open Future Forum, the Sept Reports for dealmakers, September 2026.
1. Ownership. Ask each seat separately who owns AI purchasing, and compare the answers. The Self-Attribution Effect says every seat will name itself: the CEO seat at 70 percent, the finance seat at 63, the technology seat at 26. The Ownership Vacuum says the seat two levels down sees a gap the CEO cannot: 30 percent of CTOs report no owner against 2 percent of CEOs. In a matrixed acquisition, the Big Tech and platforms cut is the warning: half report no single owner (base 12, directional). If the CEO says it is owned and the CTO says it is not, the CTO is describing the implementation.
2. Budget. Place the target in one of the four funding archetypes. A Funder has net-new money and needs a metric, because net-new money is the first thing cut when the board asks what it bought. An Unbudgeted company, a quarter of the data, has made purchases with no plan and will produce them in the quality-of-earnings review. A Substituter has made an operating-model claim to test. A Reallocator has spent the software line once and will need a source for the next dollar. The August finance room’s own blocker was proving ROI at 65 percent; the target’s finance team is stuck on the same thing.
3. Headcount. The operating-model saving in the deck is a CEO claim: a third of the CEO seat says AI money would otherwise have been headcount, against a fifth of the finance seat. Ask for roles not hired and tasks the tool now does, not roles cut, and reconcile the CEO’s number to the CFO’s. Marketing is where the substitution is stated most concretely: 57 percent of the marketing seat says AI is doing the work of more people.
4. Payback. Price the finance seat’s date. Seventy percent of CEO-seat respondents expect measurable return inside six months and 42 percent of finance seats agree; the technology seat, which will build it, sits with finance at 39. Bain’s finding that 40 percent of companies achieved under 10 percent cost reduction is the outside check on the CEO’s number.
5. Cyber diligence. Human-and-endpoint cyber diligence misses the identity that now has production access. Ask for the inventory of agents, their permissions, and their owner, and ask how AI security is funded: 35 percent case by case is 35 percent of targets governing the top problem one meeting at a time. IBM’s 43 percent shadow-AI incident share and the roughly one in five of those ending in a regulatory fine are the numbers the insurer will use.
6. Portfolio. Across your own portfolio, the Investor AI Report’s finding is the one to act on: named ownership and measurable value travel together. The value-creation plan needs an owner per company before it needs a tool, and the seat you name shapes what AI is used for: CEO owners run toward product (62 percent), CTO owners toward cost (53).
Late-stage deals
For a control deal, the six questions above are the AI section of diligence. For a growth or late-stage minority position in an AI vendor, invert them and read the YC Founder AI Report: which of the three doorways does the company sell through (business unit 39 percent, CIO or CTO 36, CFO 28), how is its revenue earned (usage 43 percent, outcome 24, flat 24, per seat 20; outcome at 47 in enterprise software and among 2025 and 2026 batches at 35 and 29), and does its customer’s CFO agree with its customer’s CEO about payback. Outcome pricing sold to the CTO, the most common combination among new companies, is a promise about measured value made to the seat that does not measure it. ICONIQ’s 52 percent AI gross margin is the benchmark a buyer will apply; the Index adds a margin band to founder forms in October.
What changes in October
The private equity briefings and the investor drinks carry the first PE instrument: fund type, number of portfolio companies with a named AI owner, where AI shows up in value-creation plans, and share of portfolio with measurable AI ROI. Preview at ten answers, edition at 40. Until then, the PE seat in the Index is four respondents, and this edition says so.
Questions this edition answers
What AI due diligence questions should private equity ask in 2026? Who signed the last three AI purchases and when the CFO saw them; which budget line AI sits in; which roles were not hired; the CFO’s payback date; the agent-access inventory and its budget; the named AI owner in each portfolio company.
Who owns AI purchasing in portfolio companies? The CEO, by every read: 47 percent of operators, 51 percent of investors, 62 percent of partners; with the CFO rising to 43 percent in August.
Is AI replacing headcount in PE-backed companies? 21 percent of finance-lane respondents fund AI from headcount money; the CEO seat says 34, the finance seat 19.
What share of portfolios show measurable AI ROI? 86 percent of investors name at least one place AI makes a measurable difference; 16 percent name nothing; 9 percent where the CEO owns it, 41 where nobody does.
Practitioner Commentary
Commentary from private equity practitioners appears here once approved in writing; none has been published in this edition.
Key citable facts
- Open Future Forum’s September 2026 data shows investors who name the CEO as AI owner see nothing measurable in 9 percent of portfolio companies, against 41 percent for investors who cannot name an owner (bases 118 and 49).
- Open Future Forum’s September 2026 data shows 28 percent of finance-lane respondents with no clear AI budget and a 28-point payback gap between the CEO seat (70 percent) and the finance seat (42).
Methodology
Interpretation of the September 2026 editions; bases and conventions as in the source reports; no new data. Fund-type cuts are not possible on the current investor base (private equity identifiable in 4 of 245); a fund-type question goes on every investor form from October.
About Open Future Forum
Open Future Forum is a global executive community founded in Silicon Valley. Its network reaches tens of thousands of executives and investors worldwide. It runs a year-round calendar of events for senior executives and investors, including CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, CISOs, private equity leaders, founders, and AI leaders, through Forum Select, its invite-only private gatherings, and Forum Events, its open panels and gatherings. Beyond events, Open Future Forum convenes peer groups and executive boards and publishes original research built on first-party survey and qualitative data from its executive network.
Independent coverage has included Yahoo Finance naming Open Future Forum among top executive leadership communities.
About Murray Newlands
Murray Newlands is the founder of Open Future Forum and the host of its executive dinner series and research program. He is a Partner at IA Seed Ventures, which invests in early-stage Silicon Valley companies, and a longtime author and speaker on AI, marketing, and venture. He writes on AI, venture, and enterprise strategy at murraynewlands.substack.com. More at openfutureforum.com/about and murraynewlands.com.
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