Everyone in PE Is Doing AI. Almost Nobody Will Show It in the Multiple.
Accordion Partners at SuperReturn 2026 put it plainly: everyone in PE is doing AI; almost nobody is doing it in a way that will show up in the multiple. That's not a technology observation. It describes two kinds of AI that share vocabulary and almost nothing else.
- private equity
- AI strategy
- exit multiples
- value creation
The headline from SuperReturn 2026 didn't get much coverage outside the PE press. It should have. Accordion Partners put it plainly: everyone in PE is doing AI; almost nobody is doing it in a way that will show up in the multiple. That's not a technology observation. It describes a distinction the PE community has been slow to name clearly, and that's starting to cost funds at exit.
Two kinds of PE AI
There are two kinds of PE AI, and they share vocabulary and almost nothing else.
The first kind exists because the board asked about it: pilots, task forces, quarterly AI reviews, an AI initiative line item in the 100-day plan. This AI is real. People are doing work around it, meetings are being run about it, it appears in the board deck and the management presentation at exit. What it doesn't do is produce the operating metrics an acquirer prices.
The second kind is positioned to show up at exit: workflow redesigns that reduce operating cost in ways a buyer can independently verify; data assets built during the hold period that competitors won't have; margin structures that improve with scale because AI is embedded in the operating model rather than layered on top of it. The acquirer can see it in the numbers before anyone describes it in a slide.
Accordion's observation is that most PE portfolios have the first kind. Almost none have the second. The distinction isn't about how much is being spent or how sophisticated the tools are. Companies with significant AI budgets are running the first kind; companies with tightly scoped implementations deployed into redesigned workflows are running the second.
What "shows up in the multiple" means
Understanding why requires being specific about what "shows up in the multiple" actually means. A buyer at exit evaluates AI adoption through operating metrics, not initiative lists: is the EBITDA margin higher than sector comps? Is there a verifiable cost-per-unit advantage that isn't explained by volume alone? Can management describe a data asset that will compound post-acquisition and that the buyer can't replicate in 18 months? The AI thesis has to appear in those numbers, not in the description of the program that was supposed to produce them.
Most portfolio companies can describe what they're doing with AI. Fewer can show what it produced: in the numbers, over time, at scale. The Accordion quote is a signal that the PE community is beginning to price that difference, and that initiative lists without underlying metrics are going to be increasingly visible for what they are.
The timing problem nobody discusses
The timing problem underneath all of this is the one no one is discussing openly. PE hold periods run four to six years. Companies that launched AI initiatives in 2022 and 2023 are approaching exit windows in 2026 and 2028. An AI implementation needs to be producing structured, verifiable operating data for at least 18 to 24 months before an acquirer can price it with confidence. They need to see that the cost advantage is durable, not a launch artifact that reverses when the implementation team leaves.
Implementations that started in 2025 or 2026 may show up in operating metrics but won't have the track record an acquirer needs to trust them in a model. The AI is real. The proof isn't aged enough to hold up in a buy-side process.
Many of the firms Accordion is describing aren't behind because they missed AI. They started the right work too late for the current exit cycle. The value from those implementations will be captured by whoever buys the company, not the current fund. That's not a failure of AI strategy. It's a failure of timing.
In the numbers, or just in the deck
The same distinction exists beyond PE. Companies running AI because leadership said to; companies redesigning how work gets done because they decided to compete on a different cost structure. The question Accordion is implicitly asking of PE portfolios is worth asking of any organization: is the AI work you're doing going to show up in the numbers, or just in the deck? A buyer at exit makes that distinction explicit and prices it. For everyone else, the reckoning comes later — and usually less conveniently.
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