PE Insights London 2025: Cutting Through the AI Noise

The Event

On 26th November, Veronika and I attended Private Equity Insights at The Waldorf in London — the UK's largest gathering of GPs and LPs. The agenda covered the full spectrum: fundraising dynamics, deal sourcing, value creation strategies, and exit planning. Hundreds of senior PE professionals in one room, all trying to work out what comes next.

Thanks to the PE Insights team for putting on a well-organised, genuinely engaging event. The speaker lineup was strong, the format kept things moving, and the networking was exactly what you'd hope for at this scale.

The AI Problem in the Room

Here's what struck us most: AI was everywhere in conversation, but almost nowhere in substance.

Everyone wanted to talk about it. Panels referenced it. Attendees brought it up over coffee. But the discourse was dominated by a familiar pattern — broad enthusiasm from people who haven't actually implemented anything, drowning out the practitioners who have.

We'd mention AI and watch eyes roll. Not because people don't believe in it, but because they've heard the pitch too many times from the wrong people. Evangelical AI enthusiasts — the ones who've read the blog posts but never shipped a model into production — have made it genuinely harder for firms doing serious implementation work. The signal-to-noise ratio is terrible.

That's a problem, because the message that actually matters is straightforward: integrate AI into your operations now, or lose ground to firms that already have. Not in five years. Now. The efficiency gains in deal sourcing, portfolio monitoring, and operational due diligence are real and measurable. But when every second person at a conference is waving their hands about "transformative AI" without specifics, the people who need to hear that message tune out.

What Actually Matters for PE

The value creation track was the most relevant to what we do. Private equity's edge has always been operational improvement — buying good businesses, making them better, exiting at a premium. AI fits that model perfectly, but only when it's applied to concrete problems:

• Portfolio company operations — automating reporting, streamlining back-office functions, improving customer acquisition costs
• Due diligence — processing data rooms faster, identifying risks that human review misses at scale
• Deal sourcing — pattern matching across markets to surface opportunities before they hit the mainstream radar

None of this is speculative. These are tools that exist today and deliver ROI within months, not years.

Bright Spots

Despite the noise, we caught a few sparks. Some genuinely sharp conversations with people who get it — firms that are past the "should we do AI?" stage and deep into "how do we do it well?" That's our favourite kind of conversation, and we're looking forward to building on those relationships.

The PE industry doesn't need more AI evangelism. It needs people who can sit down with a portfolio company, identify the three things that will move the needle, and build them. That's the work we're focused on at MetaLumna, and it was encouraging to find others at PE Insights who think the same way.

Looking Ahead

PE Insights runs conferences across Europe — UK, DACH, Nordics, Benelux, and more. If you're in the PE space and want to connect with serious operators rather than just absorb keynotes, it's worth attending.

And if you left the conference thinking "AI sounds interesting but I don't know where to start" — that's exactly the gap we fill. Get in touch.