Apollo's Three-Pillar AI Strategy for Private Equity
Apollo co-head David Sambur details their three-pillar AI framework across portfolio operations, deal underwriting, and internal reporting.
Where AI Is (and Isn’t) Creating Value
With Hugh MacArthur, Robert Smith, David Toms, John Maldonado, Rob Lucas, Pete Stavros, David Sambur · Sunday, September 6, 2026
Host Hugh MacArthur convenes leading private equity investors from Vista, Hg, Advent, CVC, KKR, and Apollo to evaluate where artificial intelligence is driving real value versus where it remains in experimental stages. The discussion explores proprietary enterprise data architecture, peer benchmarking to drive operational adoption, AI-powered investment committee tools, leadership culture, and practical portfolio-wide rollout strategies.
Key takeaways
- David Sambur, co-head of private equity at Apollo, structures AI deployment across three clear tracks: portfolio operations, investment evaluation, and internal firm productivity. Read more →
- David Toms, partner at Hg, avoids top-down sponsor mandates by using executive ego and peer collaboration to drive operational improvements across dozens of B2B software assets. Read more →
- Advent International tracks more than 80 AI initiatives across 30 North American portfolio companies, spanning early pilots, full rollouts, and commercial products. Read more →
- Pete Stavros reports that across roughly 250 portfolio companies, AI serves as an incremental operational lever rather than a core thesis for underwriting buyouts. Read more →
- In January 2020, CVC CEO Rob Lucas took the firm's entire leadership team to Singularity University to study exponential technological curves. Read more →
- Less than 1% of enterprise data has been absorbed by large language models, explaining the massive gap between corporate experimentation and working production systems. Read more →
6 articles from this episode
Hg's David Toms on Driving Value via Peer Benchmarks
David Toms shares how Hg uses anonymized portfolio rankings to trigger executive competition and accelerate operational change in software buyouts.
Advent Deploys AI Observer to Audit Investment Committee Memos
Advent Managing Partner John Maldonado explains how an AI observer audits deal memos, tracks thesis drift, and standardizes macro underwriting assumptions.
KKR's Pete Stavros on the Reality of Portfolio AI
Pete Stavros explains why KKR treats AI as an operational test grid across 250 companies rather than a buyout thesis driver.
Why CVC Tracks AI Usage on Monday Morning Calls
CVC CEO Rob Lucas explains why waiting on AI adoption guarantees obsolescence and why CVC mandates daily AI usage across deal teams.
Robert Smith on Agentic AI and Private Equity Exits
Vista's Robert Smith explains why strategic buyers target working agentic AI workflows and why models must move to data, not data to models.
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