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Why PE Firms Are Asking the Wrong Question About AI
Elon Salfati joined me this week to break down what most PE-backed companies are getting wrong about AI. Not the surface-level stuff, not the board slide version. The real operational gap between clicking a button and actually changing how a business runs. Elon advises PE firms, enterprise operators, and has consulted the UK House of Lords on AI policy alongside leaders from Microsoft and Palantir. His firm, Safari Group, works with businesses to replace manual, people-dependent processes with governed AI systems that scale without adding headcount.
What stood out most in this conversation was the idea of decision sovereignty. When a company hands all its strategic thinking to an LLM, it loses its competitive edge. An LLM echoes the past. It will not discover gravity if an apple falls on its server. The real opportunity is flipping the model so the company reaches out to the human for creative judgment, not the other way around. Elon walked through a real case study with Key Loop where they reduced churn by rethinking the entire process workflow before touching the technology.
[00:06:43] Wrong question vs right question
[00:08:42] Point solutions on broken processes
[00:10:39] Political resistance to change
[00:16:08] Why AI initiatives stall
[00:29:09] Decision sovereignty explained
[00:36:09] Human with an army of agents
[00:41:19] Turning service companies into software
[00:47:01] Personal AI at work and home
Guest Information
Elon Salfati is the founder of Safari Group, a Zurich-based AI consultancy. His background spans cybersecurity, scalable systems, and applied AI research. He is currently completing his PhD at Imperial College London focused on building secure AI systems and organizational AI culture.
Companies Mentioned
Safari Group
Key Loop
IBM
Capital One
PepsiCo
Blackrock
NewsCorp
Palantir
Microsoft
Anthropic
Websites Mentioned
https://www.safari-group.ai
Takeaways
AI without process redesign adds chaos, not speed. The companies winning are the ones asking what the operating model looks like when AI runs the operational layer, not just what AI tool to add. Decision sovereignty keeps your competitive edge intact. The shift worth building toward is an army of agents that surfaces decisions to the human, not humans triggering every automation manually.
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By Graeme CrawfordElon Salfati joined me this week to break down what most PE-backed companies are getting wrong about AI. Not the surface-level stuff, not the board slide version. The real operational gap between clicking a button and actually changing how a business runs. Elon advises PE firms, enterprise operators, and has consulted the UK House of Lords on AI policy alongside leaders from Microsoft and Palantir. His firm, Safari Group, works with businesses to replace manual, people-dependent processes with governed AI systems that scale without adding headcount.
What stood out most in this conversation was the idea of decision sovereignty. When a company hands all its strategic thinking to an LLM, it loses its competitive edge. An LLM echoes the past. It will not discover gravity if an apple falls on its server. The real opportunity is flipping the model so the company reaches out to the human for creative judgment, not the other way around. Elon walked through a real case study with Key Loop where they reduced churn by rethinking the entire process workflow before touching the technology.
[00:06:43] Wrong question vs right question
[00:08:42] Point solutions on broken processes
[00:10:39] Political resistance to change
[00:16:08] Why AI initiatives stall
[00:29:09] Decision sovereignty explained
[00:36:09] Human with an army of agents
[00:41:19] Turning service companies into software
[00:47:01] Personal AI at work and home
Guest Information
Elon Salfati is the founder of Safari Group, a Zurich-based AI consultancy. His background spans cybersecurity, scalable systems, and applied AI research. He is currently completing his PhD at Imperial College London focused on building secure AI systems and organizational AI culture.
Companies Mentioned
Safari Group
Key Loop
IBM
Capital One
PepsiCo
Blackrock
NewsCorp
Palantir
Microsoft
Anthropic
Websites Mentioned
https://www.safari-group.ai
Takeaways
AI without process redesign adds chaos, not speed. The companies winning are the ones asking what the operating model looks like when AI runs the operational layer, not just what AI tool to add. Decision sovereignty keeps your competitive edge intact. The shift worth building toward is an army of agents that surfaces decisions to the human, not humans triggering every automation manually.