A Q&A with Chris Cummings, Chief Strategy Officer at InvestorFlow
Following the Private Markets AI Summit in New York, we sat down with Chris Cummings to discuss the urgent message emerging from industry leaders: get on board now or get left behind.
What was the overall message at the Private Markets AI Summit?
It was unambiguous: this is not a wait-and-see moment. Speaker after speaker made the case for what we're calling "Strategic Impatience" — the deliberate application of urgency to drive action, while maintaining patience for long-term progress. In the short term, firms need to start their experimentation engines immediately. Longer term, leadership at the CEO, CFO, and Managing Partner levels need to rethink the entire firm with an "AI-first" lens. The discussion went so far as to say that if leadership isn't doing this, firms simply have the wrong leadership.
How much will AI actually change private markets?
In a word, it will "transform" everything — every core function and every individual role. The transformation is not optional and not incremental. AI will fundamentally reshape how private markets firms operate, compete, and create value. The only question is whether your firm will lead this transformation or be forced to follow.
Many firms cite data quality as a barrier. How are leaders addressing this?
That's the classic excuse, and it's time to move past it. If firms haven't been able to fix their CRM and data problems yet, what makes them think it will magically happen now?
Leading firms are taking a different approach. Instead of getting bogged down in the data quagmire, they're leveraging AI's ability to aggregate from numerous sources — CRM, email, meeting notes, documents — to create a unified view. They focus on the most important data and improve over time.
And they're not putting AI on autopilot. They're redeploying associates who previously aggregated information by hand into review cycles to ensure integrity, flag suspicious data, and identify where next initiatives can raise the bar. One firm said, "if you think this is scary now, wait 3 months, 6 months, a year, and it will be scarier, because you will be even further behind."
How will AI change the GP-LP relationship?
A speaker from Morgan Stanley made a crucial point: LPs are already using AI in their daily lives, and they'll use it to better assess what firms are doing with their money — terms, valuations, performance relative to peers. This will ratchet up requirements for transparency and data that the industry often discusses but declines to act on. The bar for transparency is rising whether firms are ready or not.
Where should firms focus their AI investments?
Five critical areas emerged:
- Multiplying associate output — enabling professionals to accomplish 3x more and focus on higher-value analytical work that differentiates top performers.
- Value creation plans — firms like Apollo are investing heavily here. AI enables sophisticated portfolio company analysis, faster opportunity identification, and better execution monitoring.
- Change management — technology adoption fails without cultural adoption. Leading firms run formal programs to train teams and ensure everyone understands how AI enhances rather than threatens their roles.
- Document intelligence — AI can process volumes of unstructured information that would take armies of analysts months to review, extracting KPIs, metrics, and transforming hidden insights into actionable intelligence.
- Leveraging external expertise — given the pace of AI evolution, building internally is too slow and risky. Leading firms tap outside experts rather than attempting to build from within.
Why work with external partners rather than building in-house?
Leading firms emphasized building on enterprise-class platforms — OpenAI, Microsoft 365, Azure, Salesforce — rather than creating fragmented point solutions. This approach scales as firms grow, integrates seamlessly with existing systems, and avoids the integration headaches and limited ROI that plague homegrown efforts.
The firms that will win are those that can build AI capabilities that scale not just within their own operations, but across their entire portfolio. As portfolio companies adopt AI, GPs need infrastructure to support, monitor, and extract insights from these initiatives.
How should firms measure AI success?
First, quality — AI offers the ability to generate higher quality work through the sheer volume of data it can incorporate. Better decisions, more thorough analysis, and fewer errors directly impact returns. The question is not whether AI can match human quality, but whether humans without AI can match the quality of humans with AI.
Second, time — this operates in two dimensions. First, capacity: freeing professionals to evaluate more opportunities and move faster on competitive deals. Second, currency: moving from periodic analysis to real-time intelligence that impacts decision-making.
Third, human capital — perhaps the most important transformation. Rather than spending time on data aggregation and routine analysis, professionals can focus on insight generation, relationship building, and strategic thinking — the activities that truly differentiate top performers.
Successful firms track specific metrics: time to complete key processes, volume of opportunities evaluated per professional, quality scores for work products, LP satisfaction scores, and fundraising cycle times. These create accountability and ensure AI delivers tangible value rather than becoming expensive experiments.
What should CEOs and Managing Partners do first?
Leadership must commit publicly to AI transformation as a strategic priority — this isn't just another IT project. Set aggressive but realistic timelines. Engage external experts. Communicate continuously with the team.
Most critically, embrace the "AI-first" lens for rethinking the entire firm. Every workflow should be reimagined with AI capabilities at the center. This is not about automating existing processes — it's about fundamentally redesigning how work gets done.
What about CFOs?
CFOs need to develop ROI frameworks that capture both quantitative and qualitative benefits. The financial case is compelling, but it requires looking beyond simple cost reduction. The real value comes from revenue acceleration (faster deal flow, better fundraising), risk reduction (improved due diligence, better portfolio monitoring), and competitive positioning (meeting rising LP expectations).
What happens to firms that wait?
The choice is stark: lead the transformation or fall further behind. Firms that act decisively now will compound their gains quarter after quarter. Those that wait will find themselves competing with one hand tied behind their backs, unable to match the speed, insight, and service levels that AI-enabled competitors deliver.
The gap between leaders and laggards is widening rapidly, creating competitive advantages that will become increasingly difficult to overcome.
Sum it up for us. What's the key takeaway?
The time to act is now. Not next quarter. Not next year. Now.
AI represents the most significant operational transformation in the history of private markets. The transformation is already underway, and early leaders are pulling ahead with compounding advantages.
The cost of intelligence is dropping to zero. Associates can be amplified to perform at 3x their current output. Portfolio companies can be supported with sophisticated value creation capabilities. Limited partners can be served with unprecedented transparency.
But the window for leadership is narrowing. The firms that start revving their experimentation engines today, that embrace the "AI-first" lens, that partner with proven experts to accelerate implementation — these firms will define the next era of private markets excellence.
The question is not whether AI will transform private markets. It already is. The question is whether your firm will lead that transformation or be forced to follow competitors who moved faster.
Strategic impatience is not just a concept — it's a competitive necessity. The firms that act now will set the pace for the industry's future.
Chris Cummings is Chief Strategy Officer at InvestorFlow, which provides an AI-powered application suite for capital formation, capital deployment, and investor services. Built on enterprise-class platforms including OpenAI, Microsoft 365, Azure, and Salesforce, InvestorFlow delivers AI capabilities that scale as firms grow. For more information, visit investorflow.com.