Legacy AI Solutions vs Modern Finance Platforms

Today I joined Brent Thill and Jack Arrix at the 2026 Jefferies AI Summit here in San Francisco. Really enjoyed the convo around AI in the office of the CFO. There has never been a more exciting time for a CFO with the pace of data informing how fast they can action and influence outcomes for their own business.

This was one of those conversations where the perspectives just clicked. Jennifer Stoops was a natural host, and Joseph Polverari and I found ourselves digging into some of the biggest opportunities and challenges facing property management today: AI, customer and resident experience, data, operations, and what it really takes to use technology to make the experience better rather than simply add more technology. One point I feel strongly about: AI is not a strategy. It is a tool. Without the right data, processes, and understanding of your customer, AI can amplify friction just as easily as it can remove it. When leaders across property management, technology, and fintech get together, the possibilities get pretty interesting. If you want a glimpse into what the next generation of property management and resident experience could look like, this is worth a watch. Thank you Jennifer, Joseph, and EverResi Media Media for a great conversation. #PropertyManagement #AI #PropTech #ResidentExperience #SFR #BTR #MeetThePM

AI is changing more than how companies operate. It’s changing how buyers value them. In our fourth Navigating the Exit webinar, I was joined by my Navant colleagues, Charles Bedard and • Jeff Eversmann to explain why the SaaS Apocalypse has been overstated, discuss what’s separating AI winners from losers in today’s K-shaped valuation market, how AI is changing acquisition multiples, and the new business models reshaping technology M&A. Great turnout, thoughtful questions, and a lot to unpack as AI continues to reshape the market. For those who missed it, the deck is available. We’ve also published our Q3 2026 Signals M&A Briefing, which examines the AI Reset in more detail. To get a copy of either, send us a note or visit our website to download them.

There’s a pattern in buy-side AI programs that stall at pilot. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱. Reference data lacks a single authoritative source. Lineage is documentation, not a control mechanism. The operating model was designed for reporting, not agent access patterns. Deploying AI in this situation does not resolve the fragmentation; it just surfaces it faster and at greater scale. The firms moving past pilots start from a different place. They resolve the operating model and data infrastructure questions before deploying AI, not after discovering the failure. On 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟮, Gaurav Aggarwal, Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Product Strategy at Indus Valley Partners, is hosting a private breakfast at the 𝗔𝗶 𝗙𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶, 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗬𝗼𝗿𝗸, for senior buy-side leaders to discuss what these structural differences look like in practice and look at real AI agents running in production across reconciliation, compliance, and reference data workflows. 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝘁: https://hubs.ly/Q04xGcxB0 #AssetManagement #DataMaturity #BuySide #AIAdoption #InvestmentOperations #FinanceForward

The next wave of value creation in private equity won't come from another reporting tool. It will come from rethinking how portfolio operations, diligence, and monitoring actually get executed — with AI doing the work, not just visualizing it. We've built a Point of View on agentic AI use cases for private equity: a starting point for firms ready to move from exploring AI to actually building with it. We believe firms get the most durable advantage when the AI they use reflects how they invest and operate — never a generic layer bolted on top. For teams building this internally, that's exactly the right instinct, and this PoV is designed to sharpen that roadmap. For teams who'd rather not go it alone, we build alongside you — bringing the technical depth, your team brings the portfolio context. Both paths lead to the same place: AI that's genuinely yours. Full PoV below. Feel free to download it, use it the way you want, the way it serves your numbers, your thesis. For questions, reach out to connect@yourastralmind.com #PrivateEquity #AgenticAI #ValueCreation #PortfolioOperations #PrivateMarkets #DigitalTransformation #AlternativeInvestments

Every PE portfolio has the same problem: more companies to track, more numbers to reconcile, and the same small team doing it all. We put together a Point of View on where agentic AI actually helps with this - not another dashboard, but a change in how the work gets done across the portfolio. If your team is already building this in-house, good call. You know your portfolio better than we do. This should still be useful for the roadmap. If you're not sure where to start, or don't want to build alone, we're glad to help. Either way, the goal is a system that's actually yours. PoV below. #PrivateEquity #AgenticAI #PortfolioManagement #AlternativeInvestments #PrivateMarkets #AIStrategy #ValueCreation #AstralMind #DubaiAIMandate

Every deck this quarter opens the same way. "We use AI." I've stopped reading past slide two. AI is table stakes now. Saying you use it tells me nothing. Leading a pitch with it is like leading with "we have a website." What actually holds my attention in a first meeting: - Real customers paying real money. Not pilots. Not LOIs. Signed contracts. - A problem stated in one sentence, no buzzwords. - Retention. If people stay, you have something worth funding. If they churn, no model saves you. - Margin. Prove you can scale without lighting money on fire. Founders closing rounds right now walk in and prove people already pay them for solving something specific. Everything else is decoration. Lead with the traction. AI can come up on slide seven when we ask how you built it. Investors, what's the fastest way a deck loses you? Founders, what did you lead with when you closed your last round?

We’ve spent the last few months building in a market that is still being defined in real time. I’ve gotten to work with companies across so many different industries and see firsthand how differently their operational knowledge is stored, from code and communications to financial models, workflows, designs, and highly specialized internal systems. It’s raised a much bigger question: what does the next generation of AI training data look like once we move beyond the public internet? There’s so much knowledge about how people actually work that has never been available to models. We’re bringing together founders, investors, and operators during SF Tech Week on October 8 to talk about exactly that: what we’re learning, what makes real-world company data valuable, and where this market goes from here. If you invest in companies, build them, or know founders sitting on years of valuable data, come join us. Would love to see you there!

Identifying why an asset is underperforming can take months. With the right technology and a solid data foundation, it takes minutes.    That's the shift Shivani Kumar, who leads Applied AI at Yardi, unpacks in the next episode of The Capital Stack. The through-line of the conversation: AI isn't just a tool layered on top of existing workflows. It's fundamental enough to change how investment teams actually work, from variance analysis to tracing why a single asset is trailing its market.  Shivani walks through what data readiness involves and how real estate organizations can get there for AI. Dropping next week on The Capital Stack. Subscribe to catch it first 👉  https://lnkd.in/e94SGygs  #TheCapitalStack #AppliedAI #RealEstateInvestment #DataGovernance 

Two-thirds of CFOs say human oversight of AI is "extremely critical." Only 3% say it barely matters. That's not fear of AI. That's just good judgement. The best AI-native platforms were built around this from the start. Campfire's Ember doesn't post to the ledger unless you let it. Confidence thresholds decide what gets automated and what waits for a human. That's the difference between AI theatre and AI you can actually run a close on. IvyPoint builds this into every Campfire rollout for finance teams who want speed without giving up control. Want to see what human-in-the-loop actually looks like in production? Let's walk you through it. #AIinFinance #Campfire #CFO #FinanceLeadership #AuditReady #IvyPoint