The September answer
Conviction is high and it is unevenly distributed, and the thing that distributes it is whether the investor can say who owns the decision. Across 237 portfolios, 86 percent of investors see AI making a measurable difference somewhere, most often in the product. But the fifth of investors who cannot yet name the owner of AI buying in their companies are four times as likely to see nothing measurable as the half who name the CEO. That is the operator finding, authority before accountability, read from the capital side: where the portfolio company has settled who owns AI, the investor can see what it returned; where it has not, the investor cannot. The next collection, at the investor drinks, adds fund type and share of portfolio with measured ROI so the line can be tracked properly.
What changed since Edition 1
Edition 1, published in August, was the baseline from one gathering. No instrumented investor event has run since, so every line stands. What is new is the convention and the cuts. Inside the July registration window there were two cohorts, an early 18 and a late 216; the small early cohort saw nothing measurable at 28 percent against 15 for the late, and better products at 39 against 52, but 18 is too small to read and the difference is noted, not claimed.
| Question | Answer | Edition 1 (August) | September restatement | Base |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who increasingly owns AI buying across your portfolio? | The CEO | 51 percent | 51 percent | 245 |
| Too early to say | 22 percent | 22 percent | ||
| The CIO or CTO | 11 percent | 11 percent | ||
| Individual teams, bottom-up | 8 percent | 8 percent | ||
| The CFO or finance | 7 percent | 7 percent | ||
| Where is AI making the biggest difference? | Better products | 51 percent | 51 percent | 237 |
| Cutting costs | 35 percent | 35 percent | ||
| Helping customers | 34 percent | 34 percent | ||
| Nothing measurable yet | 16 percent | 16 percent | ||
| AI Investor Conviction Index | 86 percent | 86 percent | 237 |
Source: Open Future Forum, Investor AI Report, September 2026 refresh.
What stayed the same: everything, by construction.
What surprised us, from the cuts: how sharply measured value tracks named ownership. We expected investors who say “too early” on ownership to be earlier-stage investors with earlier-stage portfolios. Some are. But the pattern holds inside the venture group and inside the partner group: the investor who cannot name the owner cannot see the value, whatever stage they invest at.
Where this research comes from
The Investor AI Report is built from two instrument questions embedded in the application flow for Investors Summer Drinks, Open Future Forum’s July 2026 gathering for venture, growth, corporate venture, family office, and angel investors, together with the cross-lane finance instrument answered by investors at other events. Open Future Forum convenes investors through its investor drinks series in Palo Alto, the Microsoft private equity briefings, and the investor track of its executive forums. 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 through Forum Select, its invite-only private gatherings, and Forum Events, its open panels and gatherings, and publishes original research built on first-party survey and qualitative data from its executive network.
Who owns the AI buying decision across investor portfolios?
The CEO, at 51 percent of 245 investors, with the next-named seat, the CIO or CTO, at 24. A fifth say it is too early to tell. This is the third leg of the Index’s triangulation: operators in the finance rooms name the CEO at 47 percent and the August room at 50; investors looking across many companies name the CEO at 51. Three vantage points, one seat. What the investors add that the operators cannot is the “too early” answer: 22 percent of investors cannot name the owner across their portfolios, which is the Ownership Vacuum measured from outside the company, and it is twice the 11 percent of operators who say no single seat owns it inside their own.
Where is AI making a measurable difference across portfolios?
In the product, first: better products at 51 percent lead cutting costs at 35 and helping customers at 34. Sixteen percent see nothing measurable yet. The ordering matters against the public narrative. The most-cited external surveys frame enterprise AI as a cost story; the investors in these rooms, looking across the companies they fund, see it as a product story by sixteen points. The AI Investor Conviction Index, 86 percent naming at least one measurable effect, is the flagship line and the one to watch as the portfolio question is asked again.
Ownership and value, together
New this edition: where AI shows up, cut by who the investor says owns the decision (any-mention; bases in brackets; under 40 directional).
| Where is AI making the biggest difference? | Names the CEO (118) | Names the CIO or CTO (57) | Names teams, bottom-up (41) | Names the CFO (29) | Too early to say (49) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Better products | 62 percent | 58 percent | 46 percent | 48 percent | 33 percent |
| Cutting costs | 37 percent | 53 percent | 44 percent | 48 percent | 22 percent |
| Helping customers | 31 percent | 44 percent | 37 percent | 48 percent | 35 percent |
| Nothing measurable yet | 9 percent | 5 percent | 20 percent | 7 percent | 41 percent |
Source: Open Future Forum, Investor AI Report, September 2026 refresh.
This is the report’s finding. Investors who can name any owner see nothing measurable in 5 to 9 percent of portfolios, unless the owner they name is “individual teams, bottom-up,” where it rises to 20. Investors who say it is too early to name an owner see nothing measurable in 41 percent. Ownership at any named seat is associated with measured value; ownership at no seat or at the bottom is associated with its absence. The direction of causation cannot be read from a cross-section, and what can be said is that named ownership and measured value travel together. But it is the same statement the operators make from inside the building, that the companies handling AI well named the owner and the metric on the same day, now visible from the cap table.
Two secondary reads. Where the CIO or CTO owns the decision, cost cutting is highest at 53 percent and product impact still leads; the technology owner runs AI as an efficiency program. Where the CEO owns it, product impact peaks at 62 and cost cutting falls to 37; the CEO owner runs it as a product program. The seat that owns the decision shapes what AI is used for.
The same numbers, by seat: investor seniority
New this edition: the instrument cut by the investor’s own seniority, from job title (bases in brackets; under 40 directional).
| Investor seniority | Base | Names the CEO as owner | Too early to say | Nothing measurable yet | Conviction Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Partner, GP, managing director, or founder | 142 | 62 percent | 18 percent | 13 percent | 89 percent |
| Principal, VP, director, or associate | 19, directional | 32 percent | 16 percent | 11 percent | 89 percent |
| Title not classifiable or blank | 73 | 33 percent | 27 percent | 23 percent | 81 percent |
Source: Open Future Forum, Investor AI Report, September 2026 refresh.
Partners name the CEO at 62 percent, twice the rate of the junior investment staff at 32. The senior investor sits in the boardroom and sees the decision at the top; the principal sits in the diligence and sees it where the evaluation happens. This is the Self-Attribution Effect’s cousin on the capital side: the seat you sit in determines which seat you see holding the pen. The Conviction Index does not vary with seniority; what varies is where the investor locates the authority.
Partners, GPs, and founders. The largest group and the most decided: 62 percent name the CEO, 18 percent say too early, 13 percent see nothing measurable, 89 percent conviction. The seat that sits in the boardroom locates the AI decision in the boardroom.
Principals, VPs, and associates. Nineteen people, directional: 32 percent name the CEO, half the partner rate, with the same conviction at 89 and the same “nothing measurable” at 11. The seat that sits in the diligence locates the decision where the evaluation happens. Both are describing the same companies.
Unclassifiable titles. A third of the base, the least decided (27 percent too early) and the least convinced (81 percent), with nothing measurable at 23, nearly twice the partner rate. Where the investor’s own seat cannot be read, neither can the portfolio’s owner.
The same view, by fund type: the investor’s own vertical
New this edition, and the limit of this data is disclosed up front: fund type classified from title and firm name, which places 125 of 245 respondents. A fund-type question goes on every investor form from October, which is what a private equity cut needs.
| Fund type | Base | Names the CEO | Too early to say | Better products | Cutting costs | Nothing measurable | Conviction Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venture | 93 | 52 percent | 26 percent | 49 percent | 35 percent | 17 percent | 84 percent |
| Corporate venture and strategic | 10, directional | 50 percent | 0 percent | 70 percent | 40 percent | 10 percent | 90 percent |
| Angel | 6, directional | 17 percent | 50 percent | 50 percent | 0 percent | 17 percent | 83 percent |
| Private equity and growth | 4, not shown | ||||||
| Not classifiable | 120 | 53 percent | 16 percent | 50 percent | 35 percent | 14 percent | 88 percent |
Source: Open Future Forum, Investor AI Report, September 2026 refresh.
Corporate venture is the most decided group in the data: nobody says too early, and it sees both product impact (70 percent) and cost cutting (40) at the highest rates, which is what an investor embedded in an operating company would see. Venture is the most uncertain on ownership at 26 percent too early. Angels, on six responses, mostly cannot say. Private equity is four people and is not shown; the PE read arrives with the October instrument and the private equity briefings.
Venture. The most uncertain on ownership, a quarter saying too early, and slightly below the Index on conviction at 84. Venture portfolios are the earliest companies, and the ownership question is the one they have least often answered.
Corporate venture and strategic. Ten people, directional, and the most decided group in the data: nobody says too early, product impact is 70 percent and cost impact 40, both the highest, conviction 90. An investor embedded in an operating company sees both sides of the P&L at once.
Angels. Six people, directional: half cannot name an owner and none sees cost impact, which fits a seed portfolio that has not yet built the function AI would replace.
Private equity and growth. Four people, not shown. The fund-type question on the October form and the private equity briefings are what a PE cut needs.
The same view, by the portfolio’s vertical
The investor instrument does not tag the portfolio’s industry, so the vertical read for this seat comes from the operators the investors fund, on the finance instrument (Unclassified excluded; bases under 40 directional):
| Vertical | Base | Names CEO as signer | No single owner | Payback under six months | Funds AI from headcount money | No clear AI budget | Proving ROI is the blocker |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technology and enterprise software | 59 | 63 percent | 8 | 73 | 29 | 17 | 61 |
| Financial services and fintech | 10, directional | 50 percent | 0 | 40 | 20 | 40 | 50 |
| Big Tech and platforms | 12, directional | 25 percent | 50 | 42 | 17 | 33 | 67 |
| Professional services and legal | 15, directional | 47 percent | 20 | 40 | 13 | 47 | 53 |
| VC and investment | 22, directional | 50 percent | 9 | 55 | 9 | 27 | 41 |
| Other | 57 | 33 percent | 14 | 53 | 23 | 35 | 58 |
Source: Open Future Forum, Executive AI Leverage Report, Edition 3, September 2026.
Technology and enterprise software is where a named owner is most likely to exist (8 percent no owner) and where fast payback is most expected (73 percent); Big Tech and platforms is where the owner is least likely to exist (50 percent); professional services is where the budget is least clear (47 percent). An investor reading this table against the ownership-by-value finding has a map of where measured AI value is most and least likely to be visible in a portfolio.
The investor as an operator: the cross-lane read
Investors also answered the finance instrument for their own firms at other events (base 20, directional). They name the CEO as their own firm’s signer at 35 percent and no single owner at 20; expect payback inside six months at 35 percent, the lowest of any seat in the Index; report no clear AI budget at 50 percent, the highest of any seat; and name security and compliance as the blocker at 50, again the highest. The investor demanding an AI owner and a metric from portfolio companies is, in their own firm, the least likely seat to have either. The finding is small and directional, and it is the kind of finding the rooms exist to put to their own members.
What investors are asking coming into the rooms
The investor instrument carries no open question, so the asks are read from the rooms investors share with the founders and operators they fund. The CEO dinners’ most-wanted session is AI for researching investors, at 66 percent of 41 (directional): the founders are studying the capital as closely as the capital studies them. The finance rooms’ one question is reliable AI in the tools they already use, then the cost of running it; the security rooms ask who owns the agent a business unit bought. Put beside the investor data, those are the same three questions the ownership cut raises from the portfolio side: who owns it, what it costs, and whether the return can be seen. The investor drinks form adds the first open question for investors: what would change your conviction.
What this means for the investor
The diligence question is not “are they using AI” but “who owns it,” because the second question predicts whether you will be able to see a return: 9 percent nothing measurable where the CEO owns it, 41 where nobody does. Second, the seat that owns the decision predicts what AI is used for: CEO ownership runs toward product, CTO ownership toward cost; a value-creation plan should say which it wants. Third, look at your own firm. Half of investor-seat respondents have no clear AI budget and a third expect fast payback; the standard being applied to the portfolio is not yet being applied at home.
For founders, CEOs, and boards
Founders get the seat the capital sees: investors name the CEO as the owner at 51 percent and no founder instrument in this Index sells to the CEO; the YC Founder AI Report calls the distance the Seat Split. CEOs get the confirmation and the warning: your investors put the decision on your desk, and they can see the return only where you have named who owns it. Boards get a portfolio-level version of the three questions the Index asks of every company: who owns it, what number vindicates it, and whether the owner is a named seat or “individual teams,” where the measured value is a fifth as likely to appear.
Tested against the record
| External claim | Open Future Forum figure | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| PwC 29th Global CEO Survey: 12 percent of CEOs report both cost and revenue benefit from AI; 56 percent report neither | 86 percent of investors see a measurable difference somewhere; 16 percent see nothing | Contradicted in direction: the portfolio view from Silicon Valley is far more positive than the global CEO view |
| McKinsey State of AI 2026: 37 percent report EBIT impact; 6 percent are high performers | 51 percent see better products; 35 cutting costs | Complicated: investors see product effects that an EBIT question does not capture |
| BCG AI Radar 2026: 72 percent of CEOs say they are the main AI decision maker | 51 percent of investors name the CEO across portfolios; 62 percent of partners do | Corroborated in direction, lower in magnitude from outside the company |
| Coatue, May 2026: $12 trillion of AI capital expenditure through 2031 | 22 percent of investors cannot name who owns the AI buying decision in their portfolios | Complicated: the capital is committed at a scale the ownership structure has not matched |
| Menlo Ventures: 61 percent of global venture capital went to AI in 2025 | The investor rooms: 93 identifiable venture investors, 86 percent conviction | Corroborated on where the money and the conviction are |
| S&P Global 2026 PE outlook: just under one in four GPs have AI integrated into diligence | The PE read is four respondents; the October instrument adds fund type | Gap acknowledged |
Source: Open Future Forum, Investor AI Report, September 2026.
External figures are context only; the sources are not affiliated and do not endorse this report.
Where can investors discuss this with peers?
Open Future Forum convenes investors through its investor drinks series in Palo Alto, the Microsoft private equity briefings, and the investor track of its executive forums, in rooms that mix venture, growth, corporate venture, family office, and private equity with the founders and operators they fund. The investor drinks approved 39 percent of 300 applicants this period; 68 percent of titled approved guests hold a senior title and 50 percent are partners, C-level, or founders. Membership is by application and referral.
Explore the investor gatherings · Inquire about membership
Upcoming investor events
Investor drinks
Palo Alto, CA · next date to be announced
For venture, growth, corporate venture, family office, and private equity investors, with fund type, AUM band, stage, share of portfolio with measurable AI ROI, and the portfolio-owner question on the registration form. Edition 2 data collection.
Microsoft private equity briefings
Microsoft campus · by invitation
Executive briefings for private equity leaders on AI in the portfolio, with the PE instrument on the form.
Edition 2 publishes after the next instrumented investor gathering. The three questions the next rooms will debate: whether named ownership predicts measured value or the reverse, what share of a portfolio has a measured AI return, and whether the firm applies its own diligence standard to itself.
Related reading
- VC & CVC AI Investment Report
- YC Founder AI Report
- CEO AI Leverage Report
- Executive AI Leverage Report
- Executive AI Statistics
- Definitions: Self-Attribution Effect, Ownership Vacuum, Optimism Gap, Security Funding Gap, Seat Split
- The Sept Reports for dealmakers
Answers from this report. Who owns the AI buying decision across portfolios? · What share of portfolios show measurable AI ROI? · What does the buy side believe about AI ROI?
Definitions
AI Investor Conviction Index: the share of investors naming at least one place AI already makes a measurable difference across their portfolio; 86 percent in September 2026 (base 237).
Portfolio Ownership Vacuum: the share of investors who cannot yet say who owns the AI buying decision in their portfolio companies; 22 percent.
Named-owner value gap: new this edition. The difference in “nothing measurable” between investors who name any owner (5 to 9 percent) and investors who say it is too early (41 percent).
Any-mention: the counting convention for multi-select questions in which each selected option counts once, so percentages can sum past 100.
Questions this report answers
Who owns the AI buying decision across investor portfolios? The CEO, named by 51 percent of 245 investors; 22 percent say it is too early to tell.
Where is AI making a measurable difference across portfolios? Better products 51 percent, cutting costs 35, helping customers 34; 16 percent see nothing measurable yet (base 237).
Does naming an AI owner predict measurable value? In this data, yes: 9 percent of investors who name the CEO see nothing measurable, against 41 percent of those who cannot name an owner.
Do senior and junior investors see AI ownership differently? Yes. Partners name the CEO at 62 percent; principals and associates at 32 (base 19, directional).
What is the AI Investor Conviction Index? The share of investors naming at least one measurable AI effect across their portfolio: 86 percent.
Is there a peer group for investors working on AI in Silicon Valley? Yes. Open Future Forum’s investor drinks and private equity briefings convene investors with the founders and operators they fund. Membership is by application at openfutureforum.com/apply.
Key citable facts
- Open Future Forum’s September 2026 Investor AI Report holds the AI Investor Conviction Index at 86 percent (base 237) and CEO ownership of portfolio AI buying at 51 percent (base 245); no new investor data was collected in August.
- Open Future Forum’s September 2026 cut finds investors who name the CEO as the AI owner see nothing measurable in 9 percent of portfolios, against 41 percent for investors who say it is too early to name an owner (bases 118 and 49).
- In Open Future Forum’s September 2026 data, partners and GPs name the CEO as the AI owner at 62 percent; principals and associates at 32 percent (base 19, directional).
- Open Future Forum’s September 2026 data shows investors answering for their own firms expecting AI payback inside six months at 35 percent, the lowest of any seat, and reporting no clear AI budget at 50 percent (base 20, directional).
Methodology and honesty notes
This edition is built from instrument questions embedded in the application flow for Open Future Forum events: 32 guest-list exports covering 4,163 non-invited registrations and 2,851 unique people, collected 10 March through 31 August 2026. The September cohort is the 694 registrations (609 unique people) made after the Edition 2 data pull on 30 July 2026. Cohorts are different people, not a tracked panel. Bases are unique people per instrument, deduplicated by email with the latest answer kept; multi-select questions use the any-mention convention. Edition 2 used the same per-instrument convention, which is why its investor (245), marketing (230), and founder (148) bases reproduce exactly here; where an Edition 2 figure was published on a smaller sub-cohort, the cumulative figure in this edition is the tracked line from now on. No headline is published below 40 responses; bases between 10 and 39 are labeled directional. Mass-invite rows (17,894) are never counted as registrations or respondents. Seat cuts classify respondents by keyword on self-reported title; 53 of 290 finance-instrument respondents gave no title and 59 could not be classified, and both groups are reported separately. Revenue, raised, and ARR fields are free text and are not published. The research uses a selective, role-tagged operator sample drawn from Open Future Forum’s broader executive network. It is not a probability sample of all enterprises. No identifying information is published.
For this lane: one instrumented gathering, Investors Summer Drinks (registrations 12 June to 28 July 2026), with two questions: portfolio owner (245 unique) and portfolio impact (237). The owner-by-impact cut uses the 234 respondents who answered both. Seniority is classified by keyword on title; 73 titles are blank or unclassifiable. Fund type is classified from title and firm name and places 125 of 245; a fund-type question is added to every investor form from October. The private equity group (4) is not shown. The cross-lane finance-instrument read for investors (base 20) is directional. The owner-value relationship is a cross-sectional association, not a causal claim. This report measures responses, not fund performance or portfolio returns.
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.
Citation and editions
Suggested citation: Newlands, M. (2026). Investor AI Report, Edition 1. Open Future Forum, September 2026. openfutureforum.com/research/investor-ai-report-september-2026
This September refresh supersedes the August 2026 page of Edition 1, restating its lines and adding the ownership-by-value, seniority, and fund-type cuts. Companion reading: VC & CVC AI Investment Report, Executive AI Leverage Report. Edition 2 publishes after the next instrumented investor gathering. Dataset DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21576019.
Work These Questions with Investor Peers
The investor gatherings meets through small, off-the-record gatherings. Membership is by application and referral.