David Whitcombe: Exit Prep Is Now AI Readiness - Why PE Needs to Start Earlier

Episode notes

Summary David Whitcombe (Founder & Managing Director, Data Vision Services) explains what it takes for private equity-backed businesses to move beyond “AI as a chatbot” and start embedding it into day-to-day workflows. We discuss why the real bottlenecks are people, unstructured data, and governance, and where the most immediate commercial upside sits, especially around revenue retention, churn, and pricing. David also makes the case that what used to be “exit prep” is increasingly “AI readiness” and should happen earlier in the hold period. Takeaways Move beyond chatbots by embedding AI into core workflows. Biggest blockers: people, unstructured data, and sensible governance. Fast value: churn prediction, outreach triggers, pricing and packaging. Dashboards aren’t enough; push insights to frontline decision-makers.

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