RKON is proud to sponsor PEI’s Operating Partners Forum in Napa this year. The forum brings together vetted operating partners and portfolio operations executives for two days of peer-to-peer conversation, with no generic conference noise. The discussions were candid, and they pointed clearly in one direction.
AI dominated. Here is what we took away.
THE MANDATE IS REAL. THE EXECUTION GAP IS WIDER.
Deal teams are consistently pushing portfolio companies to adopt AI and show measurable ROI. Operating partners are caught in the middle. Many portfolio companies either lack a clear use case, are resistant to the idea, or simply do not know where to start.
The pressure to “just use AI somewhere” is creating friction. In many cases, it sets operating partners up to deliver against an undefined ask, with no agreed baseline, no realistic timeline, and no shared definition of success. The mandate is real. The path to executing it is not.
BUILD VS. BUY: MORE APPETITE FOR CUSTOM THAN EXPECTED
One of the more surprising signals from Napa was the appetite for custom-built solutions over off-the-shelf tools. The conversation was nuanced, but the lean toward proprietary or tailored agents came up with more frequency than anticipated heading into the event.
Whether this reflects distrust of generalized tools, specific workflow needs at portfolio companies, or the maturity of the vendor ecosystem is worth watching. What is clear is that the “just buy a tool” answer is not landing with this audience the way it might have two years ago.
DIRTY DATA BLOCKS EVERYTHING
This one was unanimous. AI is only as good as the data behind it, and the data at most portfolio companies is not ready. Fragmented systems, inconsistent taxonomies, incomplete records: these are the real blockers, not the tools, not the budget, not the talent.
Operating partners across the room named data quality as the first obstacle before any meaningful AI deployment. This is not a new problem. The fact that it keeps coming up as the primary barrier suggests it remains largely unsolved at the portfolio company level, and that solving it is not being treated with the urgency it deserves.
BANDWIDTH IS THE INVISIBLE CONSTRAINT
Operating partners are already stretched running the business. The expectation to layer AI transformation on top of day-to-day operational responsibilities, without additional resources or clear prioritization from the deal team, is creating real strain.
The ROI pressure compounds this. Partners are being asked to implement, prove value, and quantify results simultaneously, often without the tooling or data infrastructure to do any of those things well. It is a setup for frustration on all sides.
THE VENDOR LANDSCAPE HAS EXPLODED
The number of AI-focused vendors in attendance was notably higher than expected, and increasingly specialized. Rather than broad AI consulting plays, many vendors were pitching point solutions tied to specific platforms or functions, such as AI tools built for ERP systems.
This signals a maturing market. It also signals a more complex buying environment for operating partners who are trying to evaluate fit without a clear internal brief or sufficient bandwidth to run a proper selection process.
WHAT THIS MEANS
The operating partner community is not skeptical of AI. They are skeptical of AI as it is currently being asked of them: undefined mandates, unprepared data environments, and limited runway to show results.
The firms that get this right will not do so by finding a better tool. They will do so by defining the problem first, cleaning the data second, and then selecting and deploying with a clear hypothesis about where value actually comes from.
That is the kind of work we do. If you are navigating this with a portfolio company, we would be glad to talk through what a structured approach looks like.
