AI diagnostic and 100-day plan for a portfolio company

First measured gain before day 100

After the acquisition, the window of attention closes quickly. The first board meeting takes place between day 45 and day 75, and management habits set soon after. The AI intentions written into the investment memo often remain principles, for lack of an on-the-ground diagnostic and levers quantified in euros. In its “2026 Private Equity AI Radar” (May 2026), FTI Consulting finds that only 7% of funds have taken AI to enterprise scale in their portfolio companies.

The automated workflow

A structured process for fast, reliable results.

Diagnostic in the first thirty days

Interviews with management and business heads, review of available data, mapping of real processes and a list of gaps quantified in euros.

Choosing the levers

A workshop with management around day 40 selects three to five levers, each with a named owner, a measure of success and a budget.

Setting baselines

The starting position is measured on each selected lever, the condition for demonstrating improvement at exit.

First gain before day 100

The workstream fastest to produce a visible effect is launched, with an adoption plan for the teams concerned.

Tangible results

Day 30

Complete diagnostic and quantified gaps

3 to 5

Levers selected, each with an owner and a measure

Day 100

First gain measured and baseline set

Up and running in 100 days

From specification to deployment, with visible results from the first few weeks.

Rapid scoping (1 week)

Working prototype at the halfway point

Deployment and training included

Frequently asked questions: AI diagnostic and 100-day plan for a portfolio company

This window matches the moment when management accepts change and when the first post-acquisition board meeting takes place. A diagnostic delivered later arrives after habits have set, which makes every decision harder to obtain.

Pricing comes first, since a point of price flows almost entirely into EBITDA. Next come sales productivity and the automation of support functions, quicker to achieve and therefore useful for building the teams' confidence.

Each lever gets a measure linked to EBITDA, with a baseline set before the start. That discipline serves management first, then the exit file, when the buyer asks what changed during the holding period.

The plan is built with them, in a joint workshop whose priorities they co-sign. Adoption by the teams is the decisive success factor, more than the choice of tools.

More workflows: Value Creation

A business tool delivered in 6 weeks

Custom business tools built with AI

Many portfolio companies run their business on a shared spreadsheet, email and software bought ten years ago. Scheduling jobs, producing quotes, tracking deals: every step involves re-keying and relies on the memory of one or two people. Building a suitable tool used to cost €150,000 and four to six months, a budget out of reach for a fifty-person company. AI-assisted development agents bring the project down to a few weeks and a fraction of the cost, finally putting a generational leap in technology within reach.

4 to 8 weeks

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Redesign delivered in 6 weeks

Website and digital journey redesign

An acquired company's online presence often dates from the previous generation: a site designed eight years ago, a journey that loses visitors before they get in touch, content left untouched since it went live. A well-run redesign usually takes thirteen to nineteen weeks and a median budget of €12,000 for an SME, a timescale hard to fit into a holding period where every quarter counts. AI-assisted tools shorten design and build, provided the editorial content is still written by people.

6 to 8 weeks

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Built once, deployed across the portfolio

Shared AI platform across the portfolio

When each portfolio company builds its own automations, a fund holding twelve companies pays for twelve parallel engineering efforts, twelve security reviews and twelve ways to get it wrong. The same quoting, customer service or invoice processing logic is reinvented from one company to the next. That repetition inflates the portfolio's recurring technology costs and delays proof of value, just when LPs expect repeatable progress.

8 to 12 weeks

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See all workflows: Value Creation