Technology

Private Equity’s AI Moment: The Greatest Value Lever in Decades — and the Hardest to Pull

Published

2 months ago

May 1, 2026

The following article is authored by Neil Dhar, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting Americas

ARMONK, N.Y., May 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Next week at Think 2026, we’ll outline the forces shaping the Enterprise AI Race, forces that apply with particular urgency to private equity. The organizations gaining ground today are not the ones betting on a single model. They are the ones redesigning how their businesses operate, building hybrid architectures that give them control, and deploying AI in ways that orchestrate value that compounds over time.

The private equity industry understands this better than most. The days of pilots and promises are over, and the demand for hard proof (a.k.a. ROI) has begun. Is your revenue accelerating? Can you drive efficiency and profitability at the same time? What does long-term growth look like? These are the questions sitting across the table at every board meeting and investment committee, and the pressure is only intensifying.

This pressure has forced major PE firms to move aggressively to formalize their AI strategies, including exploring joint ventures with leading LLM companies. They’re making a calculated bet on AI as the most powerful value‑creation lever the industry has seen in its history, and they recognize that the window to move is now.

The logic is unmistakable. PE firms don’t run single businesses, they run portfolios. Which means AI playbooks that work don’t just transform one company; they compound across ten, twenty, fifty, hundreds. A workflow reinvented once becomes a repeatable asset. A governance framework built once becomes portfolio infrastructure. That multiplier effect is native to how PE creates value, and it’s what makes the intersection of private equity and enterprise AI one of the most consequential arenas in business right now.

The bet is a no-brainer. Execution is where it gets hard.

Here’s what we know to be true: competitive advantage won’t come from betting on a single LLM. It will come from building AI tailored to your business, shifting to a hybrid strategy that combines custom models, foundation models, and smaller specialized models, all grounded in an architecture that connects your data, your workflows, and your intelligence. In private equity, where the same playbook has to work across an entire portfolio, that distinction isn’t academic. It’s the difference between value that compounds and value that stalls.

We know this because we lived it. We turned our own operations into the proving ground, analyzing nearly 400 operational workflows and deploying AI solutions across more than 100 so far, coupled with AI governance and enablement.

The result was $4.5B in productivity gains from AI, hybrid cloud, automation and consulting expertise, and proof of what works.

We then took that proof and productized those validated workflows into IBM Enterprise Advantage, a first-of-its-kind asset-based consulting service that enables clients to build and operate their own tailored internal AI platform at scale.

With digital workers, prebuilt tools, and native governance, clients have a headstart rather than a blank slate. And because it’s multi-model, they retain the freedom to shift as technology evolves. For private equity, that flexibility determines whether a company is an asset or a liability at exit.

We’re bringing this same approach to private equity-backed companies, where the defining question is what changed and can you prove it.

A major U.S. telecommunications provider is deploying digital workers and prebuilt AI tools from Enterprise Advantage to accelerate the migration of more than 150 critical applications, delivering measurable savings within two quarters.Working with a leading insurance administrator, IBM is using agentic AI to overhaul end-to-end claims processing, a function where a single claim can involve dozens of tightly regulated steps across multiple systems. AI agents now read and structure claim documents, perform compliance checks, assess eligibility, and route cases automatically, resulting in faster cycle times, fewer bottlenecks, and an operating model built to scale.

What private equity does here will ripple far beyond its own portfolios. When PE-backed companies deploy production-ready AI across the business, they reset competitive expectations for entire industries, forcing every competitor to respond. That is the Enterprise AI Race playing out in real time.

The choices made today will define portfolio performance for the next decade. Move too slowly and you’re handing the advantage to every competitor who didn’t. Move without discipline and you’re betting the portfolio on a foundation that hasn’t been proven. The firms that win will be the ones who understood that distinction early enough to do something about it.

About IBM

IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.

Media contact:

IBM
Lily O’Brien
lilyobrien@ibm.com

SOURCE IBM

Technology

Monnit Introduces NIST Detachable Leads to Streamline Compliance Monitoring

Published

53 minutes ago

June 18, 2026

New hot-swappable lead architecture reduces downtime, simplifies recertification, and helps organizations maintain continuous monitoring.

SALT LAKE CITY, June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Monnit announced new NIST Standard and Low Temperature and Humidity Detachable Leads for compatible ALTA® Sensor Bases designed to simplify sensor recertification, reduce downtime, and support continuous compliance monitoring.

“Organizations shouldn’t have to choose between maintaining compliance and operational continuity,” said Brad Walters, Founder and CEO of Monnit. “Our detachable lead architecture allows customers to hot-swap certified leads in minutes while preserving traceability and keeping trusted monitoring programs running.”

Each NIST Detachable Lead is uniquely calibrated and designed to support traceability requirements aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards.

Rather than removing and shipping an entire sensor for recertification, customers can disconnect only the lead, connect a certified replacement, and send the original lead for recalibration. This approach is ideal for pharmaceuticals, healthcare facilities, laboratories, food storage operations, manufacturing environments, and other applications that require calibration records.

In addition to these hot-swappable, removable leads or cables with probes, we offer short Monnit Standard Temperature and Humidity Detachable Non-Leaded Probes that you can connect to compatible sensor bases.

Each NIST Detachable Lead or Probe connects to compatible ALTA Industrial and Enterprise Sensor Bases via sealed, keyed M8 6-pin connectors designed for field installation. Embedded memory within the lead stores unique lead and sensor identification, calibration data, certification information, and traceability records.

Key features and benefits include:

Hot-swappable lead replacement that minimizes downtime and monitoring interruptionsNIST-traceable calibration support and ISO 17025-accredited lab certificationSupport for FDA 21 CFR Part 11 workflows and audit programsAutomatic synchronization of calibration information with iMonnit® SoftwareLogging of lead connection and disconnection events in iMonnitHot-swapping capability while powered on or off for easier servicing

Monnit and its accredited lab partner, Sensor Calibrations, provide 25-month certificates for NIST Detachable Standard Temperature Leads and 13-month certificates for NIST Detachable Low Temperature and Humidity Leads.

Compatible ALTA Sensor Bases automatically recognize connected lead types and maintain digital maintenance records, helping organizations avoid monitoring gaps caused by traditional recertification.

About Monnit Corporation
The origin story of the Internet of Things (IoT) begins with Monnit. Before our inception in 2010, we were already at the forefront of embedding technology into machines and devices to enable them to talk and deliver valuable data to business leaders. Monnit Remote Monitoring Solutions for nearly any industry use case have delivered 72B+ data points in 130+ countries for 90K+ customers. Monnit’s 80+ long-range IoT sensors remotely monitor many conditions such as temperature, light, humidity, water, vibration, pressure, and more. You can analyze data using iMonnit cloud software and get alerts via email, text, push notification, or call when our sensors detect a change you should know.

Media Contact:
David Hill
Marketing Communications
801-505-8172
417089@email4pr.com

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SOURCE Monnit

Technology

Monnit Introduces NIST Detachable Leads to Streamline Compliance Monitoring

Published

53 minutes ago

June 18, 2026

New hot-swappable lead architecture reduces downtime, simplifies recertification, and helps organizations maintain continuous monitoring.

Each NIST Detachable Lead is uniquely calibrated and designed to support traceability requirements aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards.

Key features and benefits include:

Compatible ALTA Sensor Bases automatically recognize connected lead types and maintain digital maintenance records, helping organizations avoid monitoring gaps caused by traditional recertification.

Media Contact:
David Hill
Marketing Communications
801-505-8172
417089@email4pr.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/monnit-introduces-nist-detachable-leads-to-streamline-compliance-monitoring-302803906.html

SOURCE Monnit

Technology

deepset Joins HPE’s Unleash AI Program to Accelerate Sovereign Agentic AI

Published

53 minutes ago

June 18, 2026

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — deepset, the company behind Haystack, the production-ready open-source AI agent framework and platform, today announced it has joined the HPE Unleash AI partner program to help government, defense, and regulated enterprises deploy production-grade AI systems in sovereign, self-hosted, and air-gapped environments.

As part of the collaboration, deepset will leverage the Haystack Enterprise Platform, deepset’s platform for building, orchestrating, and governing AI agents and applications, and HPE’s AI ecosystem and infrastructure portfolio to help organizations rapidly identify and operationalize high-value AI use cases while reducing deployment complexity and risk. This enables customers to access AI-ready infrastructure, strategic guidance, and accelerated pilot execution to address their most challenging AI adoption and operationalization needs.

Together, the companies enable organizations to deploy AI agents, multi-agent systems, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications on self-hosted, sovereign, and air-gapped infrastructure while maintaining full ownership over sensitive and classified data, models, and AI operations.

Customers can leverage the joint architecture to operationalize governed AI applications faster while maintaining the security, compliance, and deployment flexibility required for sovereign and mission-critical environments.

The HPE Unleash AI partner program is a curated ecosystem, combining ISV solutions that go through comprehensive validation testing with engineered HPE AI systems, including HPE Private Cloud AI and the broader HPE AI Factory with NVIDIA solutions, to deliver the performance, security, and scalability enterprises need for production AI. By joining the program, deepset expands access to governed AI platform capabilities designed for organizations operating in highly regulated environments, including public sector, defense, cybersecurity, and enterprise industries.

The Haystack Enterprise Platform enables organizations to:

Build and govern AI agents, multi-agent systems, and RAG applicationsDeploy AI on self-hosted, private cloud, and air-gapped infrastructureOrchestrate modular AI pipelines across models, databases, and enterprise systemsEnforce governance, auditability, and lifecycle management for production AISupport sovereign AI initiatives aligned with European and national security requirements

The collaboration builds on deepset’s experience supporting sovereign AI initiatives with organizations including the European Commission, the German Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), and other government, defense, and enterprise organizations deploying sovereign AI systems under strict governance and security requirements.

“With agentic AI moving into operational deployment, organizations need infrastructure and AI platforms they can control and trust,” said Milos Rusic, CEO and co-founder of deepset. “The challenge is getting agentic systems into production while maintaining control over infrastructure, governance, and sensitive data. Together with HPE, we’re helping customers deploy governed AI systems faster across highly regulated and mission-critical environments.”

Use cases supported through the joint architecture include:

Sovereign AI platform for public sector & regulated industry institutionsSovereign AI intelligence and decision-support systems for classified operationsCybersecurity investigation and threat analysisAI agents for technology, manufacturing, research, legal, and financial workflows

“The Unleash AI program is designed to help organizations deploy AI solutions faster and with greater operational confidence,” said Robin Braun, Vice President of AI Business Development, Hybrid Cloud, HPE. “Together, HPE and deepset are delivering secure, governed AI solutions that combine enterprise-grade infrastructure with flexible and governed AI agent capabilities to help customers operationalize AI across hybrid, sovereign, and classified environments.”

For more information, visit https://www.deepset.ai

About deepset

deepset is the company behind Haystack, the leading open-source framework and platform for building production-grade AI applications and agentic systems. deepset enables enterprises and public sector organizations to develop, deploy, and govern flexible AI applications powered by their choice of large language models, enterprise data, infrastructure, and governance policies across cloud, hybrid, and sovereign environments.

Media Contact
Steph McGuirk
417109@email4pr.com
845.269.8868

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SOURCE deepset