AI VALUE CREATION FOR PRIVATE EQUITY BACKED COMPANIES

Install AI capability that creates real enterprise value.

A structured engagement, ran by experienced PE operators.

Case Studies Available Upon Request

WHY 1769?

AI will have a vast impact on every company, the way the steam engine did after 1769. This is a new world for value creation. The companies that embrace AI with disciplined structure will define the future of their industries, and we exist to help them get there.

The Problem: 
Enterprise AI has a 95% failure rate.

95%

of organizations are getting zero return on enterprise AI investment.

5%

of pilots ever reach production.

43%

of PE-backed companies are not materially deploying AI.

The money is going in. The returns are not coming out. MIT's 2025 research found that despite billions in enterprise AI investment, 95% of organizations are getting zero return, and only 5% of pilots ever reach production. FTI's 2026 study found that 43% of PE-backed companies are not materially deploying AI. MIT is candid about the cause: the divide is driven by approach. The companies that cross it customize AI to how they actually operate, keep ownership inside the business, and govern it with discipline.

Sources: MIT NANDA, "The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025" (July 2025); FTI Consulting, 2026 PE study.

Our Approach.

Built to hand off.

A structured, temporary engagement that moves you from scattered AI experiments to a focused set of high-value initiatives your team runs on its own.

Baseline
Prioritize
Deploy
Transfer
1

Baseline.

Work with leadership to align on objectives, map your systems and existing IT roadmap, and identify the key workflows, pain points, and bottlenecks. Then survey the team's AI fluency and train everyone on the fundamentals. No tools go out until the team is aligned and baseline capabilities are elevated.

2

Prioritize.

Score each initiative against a weighted framework, model the financial impact, and tie to operating metrics. We sort the opportunities by value driver (growth, efficiency, innovation). The output is an AI roadmap with tiered initiatives, anchored on enterprise value creation.

3

Deploy.

Build and deploy the priority initiatives using our proven approach.

4

Transfer.

Hand ownership to your team, train by function so the process sticks, and complete the handoff.

Our focus.

Who we work with
Ownership
Private Equity backed.
Size
Lower-middle-market.
Sectors
Primarily business services, industrial, and consumer.
Geography
United States.
What we do
What we lead
Strategy, prioritization, forecasting, the AI roadmap, executive thought-partnership, company-wide training, and governance.
The technical build
Owned by your engineers, or built by ours and transferred back to your team on a defined transfer plan.

Case study.

From ambition to an owned AI capability.

Context. A $400M PE-owned business services company with an ambitious leadership team set out to turn AI into a real value creation lever. They wanted a disciplined, prioritized plan and a capability their own people could run.

Approach. We ran the full sequence. Baseline mapped the systems and aligned leadership on objectives. Prioritization produced a tiered AI roadmap anchored on enterprise value. Deployment began on the highest-value initiatives, built with reusable templates and playbooks to make the handoff clean.

Outcome
  • A prioritized, financially grounded AI roadmap the leadership team owns.
  • Governance and guardrails.
  • Priority initiatives moving into production, run by the company's own people.
  • Elevated AI capabilities across the entire team.
  • A capability built to transfer, so improvement continues after the engagement ends.
Ownership

The engagement is temporary by design. 

You get enhanced AI capabilities that your team runs, a roadmap they keep executing, and the enterprise value it creates. There is no permanent dependency.

About Us.

We make AI a durable source of enterprise value creation, for companies who will define the future of their industry.

PE-BACKED EXPERTISE

CEO and Board experience at multiple PE-owned companies.

PUBLIC-COMPANY OPERATORS

Stakeholder management experience from senior roles at publicly traded companies.

M&A pedigree

Investment banking experience across M&A, FIG, and coverage groups.

Engineering talent

Technical resources available to supplement your engineering team.

Get in touch.

Which best describes you?

or email info@1769.ai