Skip to content
Private equity · Portfolio companies

AI for private equity firms and portfolio companies

How can a private equity firm use AI across the fund and its portfolio?

Remote Humans coaches deal, finance and operations teams to build AI workflows on their own work, and runs fixed-fee AI Design Sprints inside portfolio companies. In a three-day residency at a global private equity firm, 28 people from associates to C-suite built prototypes and reusable skills across 21 sessions. Start with a coaching residency for the fund team, or a 2-4 week sprint in one portfolio company that ends with a costed plan.

Summary updated

Book an operating partner call
US$100bn
Total committed capitalApproximate figure · reported June 2026
28
People coachedFrom associates to C-suite
21
Hands-on sessionsBuilt around participants’ work
3
Days of coachingLondon residency · July–August 2026

From our coaching residency at a global private equity and credit firm. Read the full story.

Where to start

Two ways in: the fund team, or one portfolio company.

For the fund team

A coaching residency

One-hour sessions, each built around one person’s role. Deal, finance, operations and compliance teams bring real work and leave with prompts, templates and skills they keep.

Scoped to the number of people and days

Read the private equity residency

For a portfolio company

An AI Design Sprint

In 2-4 weeks we map how the business runs, cost each fix and show where AI fits. The board gets a costed plan it can add to the value-creation plan.

From £1,950 + VAT$2,500 USD · fixed fee

See the AI Design Sprint
Across the deal cycle

What we do at each stage of the hold.

Remote Humans services at each stage of a private equity investment
StageWhat we doYou leave with
Inside the fundCoaching on origination, screening, diligence packs, portfolio oversight and reporting.Skills and templates your team reuses on the next deal
First 100 daysAn AI Design Sprint in the portfolio company, with its leadership team.A costed plan, process maps and the first steps in order
Through the holdLeader Lab for portfolio leaders, the AI-Native Program for their teams, and Build & Embed for agreed workflows.Working tools, owned and run by the company’s own people
What fund teams built

Six areas of fund work, in three days.

Each heading shows the potential time back per person, per week, as estimated in the sessions.

Deal origination and fundraising (2–3 hours per person, per week)

Combined investor databases and news research into a prospecting skill that produced two timely leads during a session. Built and tested personalised outreach drafts, and designed a shared workflow for relationship notes, deal intelligence and follow-ups.

Investment screening and due diligence (3 hours per person, per week)

Turned a senior investor’s review criteria into an installed skill and tested it on an investment document. Credit teams created a reusable committee-deck skill and a method for extracting and reconciling evidence from large diligence packs.

Portfolio oversight (1–1.5 hours per person, per week)

Built and tested a company-specific skill that surfaced portfolio context and prioritised P&L changes, strategic questions and blocked decisions. This gave an executive a way to return to a workstream and see what needed attention.

Financial planning and reporting (1 hour per person, per week)

Built an actual-versus-budget dashboard with variance highlights and comments from a focused data export. Created a source-based budget Q&A structure, and tested a controlled approach to updating financial statements from Excel.

Credit fund operations (3 hours per person, per week)

Built a committee-paper summary skill for operations and tested it on a second pack. Tested research across email, Teams and documents to reconstruct transaction status, with FX mapping and secure deployment identified as follow-up work.

Compliance and board reporting (30 minutes per person, per week)

Created a reusable board-material request skill covering deadlines, replies and chasers. Defined policy-tracker and valuation-review workflows, keeping compliance decisions with people and making the required checks and access permissions explicit.

How a session works

One hour, one person, one workflow.

In 20 of 21 sessions at the residency, the work moved from an AI conversation towards a reusable system.

  1. 01We spend the first 10-15 minutes on the person’s role, recurring tasks and priorities.
  2. 02Together we choose one workflow worth improving.
  3. 03We build it live, using the files and context the team already has.
  4. 04We test the output and keep a person reviewing it.
  5. 05Useful work becomes a prompt, template or skill that colleagues can reuse.
FAQ

Questions buyers ask

Is it safe to use with our client or deal data?
Yes, if access is agreed first. We work only inside the AI accounts your company already approves, with the files you choose to share, and a person checks every output before it is used. At a private equity firm, 17 of 21 sessions made progress with files alone, before any live system was connected.
Do you work inside our portfolio companies?
Yes. An AI Design Sprint runs inside one portfolio company with its leaders and the people who do the work, and the fund gets the same costed plan.
Who delivers the sessions?
Elliott Callender, founder of Remote Humans. He has 18 years of making complex technology usable at firms such as J.P. Morgan, Microsoft and Beazley.
We already did ChatGPT training. Why do more?
Training shows people the tool; our sessions get it used on their own work. Each person brings one real task and leaves with something working that they keep. At a private equity firm, 20 of 21 sessions moved towards something people could reuse.
How are you different from a big consultancy?
You work directly with the person doing the work, at a published price. Elliott runs the first call, every session and the handover, and the AI Design Sprint has a fixed fee from £1,950 + VAT$2,500 USD and a fixed end date of 2-4 weeks. You keep everything we build, so your team can run it without us.
What should I ask before hiring an AI consultant?
Ask five things: who will do the work, what it costs, when it ends, what you keep, and whether they can show work like yours. A good consultant answers all five before you book. Our answers: Elliott does the work, our prices are published, the sprint ends in 2-4 weeks, you keep everything, and our client stories name the client and what they built.
Should we hire someone for AI or use you?
Prove the value with us first, then hire. A senior UK AI hire costs £144,000-£214,000 a year and can take nine months to recruit, so the best part of a year passes before anything ships. For a larger organisation, our AI Design Sprint gives you a costed plan in 2-4 weeks for under £12,000, then we build the first tools with your team and train them as we go, so your eventual hire starts with working systems and a trained team. (Pay: Levels.fyi, October 2026; Robert Half 2027 Salary Guide. Hiring time: AWS research reported by The Banker, May 2026, UK financial services.)

Start with one team or one company.

On a 30-minute call we will look at where your fund or portfolio company is today and suggest a first step with a fixed scope.

  • Fixed scope agreed up front
  • Delivered in person at your offices
  • Your team keeps everything built
Book an operating partner call