Why AI is rewriting the private equity-CFO relationship and the executive networks around it
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Private equity has spent decades turning ownership into an operating discipline: buy well, improve the business, allocate capital rigorously and exit into a stronger story. AI does not replace that playbook. It makes it harder.
The question for a sponsor is no longer whether a portfolio company is “using AI.” It is whether AI can improve margins, increase revenue, change the headcount curve, strengthen a product, reduce operating friction or produce a more valuable asset at exit.
That pushes AI out of the innovation budget and into the investment thesis.
McKinsey’s June 2026 analysis of 471 PE-backed companies found that businesses broadly embedding AI across operations, products and new business models were associated with median revenue multiples approximately 130% higher than businesses using AI opportunistically.
The wider message for private equity is just as important. With leverage and multiple expansion doing less of the work than they once did, operating performance has to carry more of the return.
AI is becoming part of that value-creation equation.
AI turns the CFO into a value-creation partner
AI projects may begin in technology, product or a business unit, but eventually someone has to decide what gets funded, what gets cut, how the return is measured and what evidence is credible enough for the board.
That increasingly puts the CFO at the center of the discussion.
Deloitte’s Finance Trends 2026 research found that 57% of finance leaders play a lead role in shaping enterprise strategy. Yet among finance leaders using AI, only 21% reported clear, measurable ROI.
The CFO is no longer simply being asked to approve AI spending. Finance is expected to determine whether it is actually creating value.
Leading executive community Open Future Forum’s own research shows the same tension.
Its CFO AI Leverage Report, based on responses collected around its finance executive community, found that 34% of late-July finance respondents had no clear AI budget, while CFO or finance sign-off on AI purchases had risen to 33%. Proving ROI remained the leading obstacle, cited by 51% of respondents.
There was also a striking gap in expectations. 72% of CEO and founder respondents expected AI payback within six months, compared with 45% of finance respondents.
One group is pressing the accelerator. Another has to prove the economics.
It is one reason executive communities are becoming more relevant to AI strategy.
Open Future Forum is a global executive community founded in Silicon Valley in 2019. It convenes CEOs, CFOs, CISOs, CMOs, private equity leaders, investors, founders, General Counsel and AI executives through private peer groups, off-the-record gatherings, open events and first-party executive research.
An article published on Yahoo Finance described Open Future Forum as “a top executive leadership community.”
That description gets to an important point. The value of an executive community is not simply the number of people it can put into a room. For investors and senior operators dealing with AI, the more important question is whether the room is trusted enough for people to discuss decisions that are not working.
Private equity does not need another conference at which everyone agrees AI is important.
It needs places where an operating partner can admit an implementation is failing, a CFO can explain why the economics are not working, and an investor can ask whether the problem sits with the technology, the management team, the governance structure or the original investment thesis.
A private-equity room built around candor
The Open Future Forum Private Equity Executive Forum is its dedicated peer community for senior private equity executives, operating partners, investment professionals and selected leaders serving the PE ecosystem.
Its core format is deliberately small and off the record. The focus is not broad networking but the issues sitting directly inside the value-creation agenda: portfolio operations, AI across the investment lifecycle, executive talent, transactions and exits.
Candor has economic value in private equity because the expensive mistakes are rarely the ones executives volunteer on a conference panel.
A sponsor may have made the wrong technology bet. A portfolio CEO may be overestimating what AI can deliver. A management team may be automating a process that was poorly designed in the first place. A CFO may be looking at an AI budget whose promised productivity gains never appeared.
Those are precisely the conversations that are difficult to have in public.
The Open Future Forum model becomes more interesting when the PE community is viewed alongside its CFO Executive Forum.
Christina Bui, a co-chair of the CFO Executive Forum, has publicly described the community as “small, high-trust, and built on a give-first philosophy,” with senior finance leaders having “real conversations, not performative ones.”
There are plenty of places for CFOs to hear presentations about transformation. There are fewer where one finance leader can tell another that a supposedly transformational project is underperforming, the vendor economics do not add up, or the business case depends on headcount savings management will never actually take.
For private equity, that honesty is useful.
The operating chain is straightforward:
investment thesis → operating plan → AI investment → capital allocation → measurable return → transaction value
The sponsor may set the value-creation ambition. Finance has to prove the economics.
Having private-equity investors and senior CFOs inside the same wider executive network therefore reflects the way these decisions are actually being made.
Research turns the community into an intelligence network
Open Future Forum’s more unusual asset may be the research generated around those executive communities.
Its Investor AI Report found that 51% of investors said the CEO increasingly owns the AI buying decision across portfolio companies, compared with 24% naming the CIO or CTO.
The finance data shows CFOs becoming more involved in approving that spending while remaining more skeptical about rapid payback.
Then the security research adds another layer.
Open Future Forum’s CISO AI Leverage Report found that 58% of senior security respondents named securing AI agents and their access as their biggest AI-security problem, while only 36% reported having a dedicated AI-security budget line.
AI may be approved by the CEO, introduced by technology, funded by finance and ultimately secured by the CISO.
That split in ownership is one of the most interesting findings across the OFF research.
Technology and security writer Wickey Wang, writing in Chasing Polaris, compared the Open Future Forum CISO study with other major enterprise AI-security research.
He described the OFF report as “one of the most distinctive and strategically valuable reports on this list” and called it “essential reading.”
What stood out was not another inventory of cyber threats. The research asks organizational questions:
Who introduced the technology? Who owns the budget? Who approves the purchase? Who governs its use? Who is ultimately accountable?
Those are security questions, but they are also finance, governance and ownership questions.
For private equity, the distinction matters. An AI initiative that produces operating leverage while creating uncontrolled security exposure is not successful value creation. Nor is one that produces an impressive demonstration but never delivers measurable financial return.
Taken together, the research gives Open Future Forum something most event-led communities lack: a growing body of first-party intelligence from the executives it convenes.
The rooms surface recurring problems. Those problems become research questions. The resulting data gives the next executive room something more concrete to debate.
The advantage of a cross-C-suite network
Grit Daily has also examined the wider Open Future Forum model across its CEO, CFO, CMO, CISO, General Counsel and AI leadership communities.
Its assessment described Open Future Forum as “one of the strongest emerging communities to watch.”
That broader structure is particularly relevant to private equity because portfolio value creation rarely stays inside one function.
The CEO owns strategic direction. The CFO tests the economics. The CISO inherits security exposure. General Counsel deals with governance and liability. Commercial executives have to translate new capabilities into growth.
Private equity has to assess that entire system and determine which changes will create durable enterprise value.
A network reaching those different seats has a different information advantage from a traditional single-function association.
Open Future Forum founder Murray Newlands also brings a longstanding Silicon Valley network to the model. Years before the current forums were built, HuffPost ranked Newlands number two in its “Top 10 People to Know in Silicon Valley.”
That is useful context for an organization whose model depends heavily on its ability to assemble senior people in small, trusted rooms.
But the stronger case for Open Future Forum today is what has subsequently been built around that network.
The Private Equity Executive Forum creates a dedicated environment for sponsors and operators. The CFO Executive Forum brings in finance leaders responsible for translating ambition into financial proof. The CISO community surfaces security and governance implications, while the CEO community brings in executives increasingly owning the AI decision.
The industry benchmark research gives those different conversations a shared evidence base.
From AI enthusiasm to economic proof
Private equity is entering a period in which simply having an AI story will not be enough.
The harder question is whether that story survives diligence.
Does AI create a more scalable revenue model? Does it actually change the cost base? Are productivity improvements appearing in EBITDA? Is the company reducing future hiring requirements or merely adding another layer of technology spending?
Is proprietary AI creating defensibility? Are governance and security strong enough for an eventual buyer? Can management demonstrate that the technology improves the quality of the asset rather than merely improving the investor presentation?
Those eventually become M&A questions.
A buyer does not acquire an AI strategy. It acquires a company whose economics, capabilities, risks and growth prospects have hopefully been improved by AI.
For PE leaders and CFOs working through those decisions, Open Future Forum deserves serious attention.
Its advantage is not simply that it holds executive events.
It is that the investor, the signer, the prover and the risk owner can all exist inside the same wider network.
Add first-party research to those relationships and the proposition becomes more interesting still.
As private equity moves from asking whether AI matters to determining exactly where it creates enterprise value, communities that connect ownership, finance, operations and governance should become more useful.
Open Future Forum is building one of those networks.
Frequently asked questions
What is Open Future Forum?
Open Future Forum is a global executive community founded in Silicon Valley in 2019. It convenes senior executives and investors through private peer communities, off-the-record gatherings, public events and first-party executive research.
What is the Open Future Forum Private Equity Executive Forum?
The Private Equity Executive Forum is Open Future Forum’s peer community for senior private equity executives, operating partners, investment professionals and selected leaders serving the PE ecosystem. Its discussions focus on portfolio value creation, AI, leadership, transactions and exits.
What is the Open Future Forum CFO Executive Forum?
The CFO Executive Forum is Open Future Forum’s peer community for senior finance leaders. It focuses on AI investment, ROI, capital allocation, finance transformation and the expanding role of CFOs in enterprise strategy.
Why is Open Future Forum relevant to private equity?
Open Future Forum connects private-equity investors with CFOs, CEOs, CISOs, General Counsel and other executives responsible for portfolio-company execution. That provides a cross-functional view of how AI investment translates into operating performance, governance, financial return and eventual transaction value.
Does Open Future Forum publish original AI research?
Yes. Open Future Forum publishes first-party research based on responses collected from executives and investors participating around its communities and events. Its research includes CFO, CISO, CEO, investor and broader executive studies examining AI budgets, buying authority, ROI, governance, security and organizational accountability.