The private equity playbook
How to tell whether ChatGPT recommends your portfolio companies, and what to do if it does not
For operating partners at UK private equity firms and the chief executives of the companies they back.
Sector lead for private equity at Fortitude Media
Download the playbook (PDF, 8 pages, 1.9 MB) ↗
Your portfolio companies' buyers now ask AI assistants for a shortlist before they contact anyone. This playbook gives operating partners a fixed audit method, a one-page board summary and the fixes that move the numbers.
What is inside
- Why good portfolio companies go missing from AI answers
- A five-step audit you can run across the portfolio
- The buy-and-build problem to check first
- A ten-question scorecard for your portfolio and fund
- Six actions for this month and five for the quarter
- How to report AI visibility to the board
Questions your buyers ask
- Asked an AI assistant
Best payroll outsourcing firms for UK retailers
- Asked an AI assistant
How do we cut debtor days?
- Asked an AI assistant
Which of these two suppliers suits a mid-sized manufacturer?
- Asked an AI assistant
Is this company any good?
Three of the ten scorecard questions
- Do you have a fixed list of 20 to 50 buyer questions for each portfolio company where inbound growth matters to the plan?
- Have you named the three to five competitors each company's sales team meets most often, to measure against?
- Do you run those questions several times a month, in a clean session, and count a win only when it repeats?
The full scorecard, a plan for this month and the next ninety days, and the sources assistants check are in the PDF.
Questions founders ask
Who should own AI visibility: the operating partner or the portfolio chief executive?
The chief executive owns the fixes, because they sit in the company's website, sales and marketing. The operating partner owns the method, so every company is measured the same way and the board sees comparable numbers. A single fixed question list per company, agreed by both, keeps the discussion on results rather than anecdotes.
How often should we run the audit?
Run the questions several times a month, because single answers vary. Report quarterly to the board, since most fixes take weeks to show in live search and months to reach answers drawn from a model's memory. Keep the question list fixed so that quarter-on-quarter changes mean something.
Does this matter if the company sells through referrals and outbound?
Yes. A buyer who hears about a company through a referral or an outbound message can check it with an assistant before replying, so a wrong or missing description can cost meetings in those channels too. Researched outbound, where a person writes and approves every message, and being named work best together.
Can anyone guarantee a portfolio company will be named?
No. Nobody can guarantee what an AI assistant will say, and anyone promising a place in ChatGPT's answers should be treated with caution. ChatGPT has shown labelled ads to UK users on its Free and Go plans since 11 August 2026, but OpenAI says the ads do not change the answer itself. A provider can guarantee effort, reporting and outcomes it controls.
Read the full guide
Sector guides · 11 min read
How can a private equity firm tell whether ChatGPT recommends its portfolio companies?
Buyers now ask ChatGPT and Copilot for a shortlist before they call anyone. How operating partners and portfolio chief executives can check whether AI assistants recommend their companies, and what to fix.
- How do we get ChatGPT to recommend our firm when buyers ask?12 min
- What is AI share of voice, and how do we compare with competitors?12 min
- How do I get my board to approve budget for AI search?12 min
- Why does ChatGPT describe my firm wrongly, and how do I fix it?13 min
- How does a B2B tech company get recommended when buyers ask ChatGPT?12 min
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