A PE operating team needed a portfolio view of AI. They left with a prioritized execution plan.

Accordion's May 2026 survey of 150 PE operating partners found 98 percent of sponsors have mandated AI adoption while only about half of portfolio companies are actively implementing.

This operating team faced that gap. The mandate existed. A portfolio-level picture of where to start did not.

The team ran the PE Portfolio Pack: a portfolio AI scan, a Diagnostic multipack across portfolio companies, and a sponsor-level adoption scoreboard.

Three portfolio companies were assessed with the same diagnostic model, scored on value pools, readiness, execution risk, and speed to value. For the first time the opportunities were comparable across companies.

Each Forge Diagnostic runs 2 weeks at a fixed price and ends with a decision the sponsor can price.

The operating team left with a prioritized execution plan across the portfolio: which companies to start with and which workflows to build first.

Eight priority plays made the cut, sequenced into a 12-month plan with 30, 90, and 180-day checkpoints. Each play has a named owner and a KPI cadence. The playbook was built to be reused on future portfolio companies, not consumed once.