There’s a gap between what funds say about AI and what happens in the inbox.
The point worth examining
The marketing talks about “AI-enhanced diligence.” The reality: fewer than 1 in 8 institutional funds has a working AI-assisted screening workflow in production. Most are pasting decks into a chatbot in a private channel and calling it a system.
That’s not a criticism — it’s an opening. The firms that move from improvised prompts to something real won’t just save time. They’ll see more, more fairly, than the ones still reading every deck by hand and quietly complaining about it.
What gets missed
I’ve spent months looking hard at where AI genuinely helps here and where it’s overhyped. Over the next few posts I want to think out loud about it — honestly, both sides.
“Everyone says they screen with AI. Almost nobody actually does.”
— ai.STARTUPJURY field note
First question for you: is your screening today all-human, ad-hoc AI, or something you’d actually call a system?