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A Private Equity Preschool Roll-Up Spent 20 Hours a Month on One Federal Report. Now It Takes 13 Minutes.

Oct 2, 2026

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10 min read

A Private Equity Preschool Roll-Up Spent 20 Hours a Month on One Federal Report. Now It Takes 13 Minutes.

The report was due on the 5th of every month, and missing that date pushed the government's payment back a full month. Adam King and Topsail automated it, but turned down the client's request to take people out of the process entirely. At a second client, Topsail said no to the AI model it asked for, and got hired for the next phase anyway.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson
How One Manufacturer Cut Diligence Waits 80%, and How the Team That Built It Became an AI-Native Investment Bank

Sep 25, 2026

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10 min read

How One Manufacturer Cut Diligence Waits 80%, and How the Team That Built It Became an AI-Native Investment Bank

Exchangers Industries ran a separate ERP in every country, so when the company went up for sale, every question from the buyer's advisors meant pulling data out of all of them and rebuilding the consolidated numbers by hand, most of a week per request. Shaheer Khan and Scaylor connected every system where it sat, had finance sign off on the account mappings once, and diligence answers started going out the same day. Then Scaylor noticed it was doing most of the work in a sale process and none of the banking, hired MDs, and now runs transactions itself. Plus Dhruv Gulati of Caliper Lab on where an AI product's advantage actually sits, Shaheer on where not to use Scaylor, and the most-read cases in the library.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson
How a GovTech Software Company Reclaimed 550+ Developer Days, and How a Retailer Put an AI Agent on Its 1980s Mainframe to Audit Every Order

Sep 18, 2026

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8 min read

How a GovTech Software Company Reclaimed 550+ Developer Days, and How a Retailer Put an AI Agent on Its 1980s Mainframe to Audit Every Order

Long Lake raised $3B to buy 35 services businesses and deploy AI inside them. If you run one, you may think you're f*cked. You already have the advantage they're paying billions to get. Inside: a Proof of Work Q&A with Csongor Barabasi of Bonsai Labs, and a Network Insight from Jordan Gurrieri of BlueLabel.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+10

How a PE Firm's Acquisitions Lead Ran an AI Agent Against His Own 80-Hour Comp, Then Called Off Two Analyst Hires

Sep 10, 2026

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10 min read

How a PE Firm's Acquisitions Lead Ran an AI Agent Against His Own 80-Hour Comp, Then Called Off Two Analyst Hires

Axia Partners, a Utah firm that buys RV parks, needed 80 analyst hours to run the comparable analysis on a single park and was about to hire two analysts to keep up. Connor McLeod and SageCreek built an AI agent that does it in a day, sitting next to the acquisitions lead while he did the work by hand. He ran it against his own comp, then cancelled the hires himself. Plus the same team taking park rebrands from 20 weeks to 4, and the most-read cases in the library.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+10

How a Clinical Trial Platform Took 1,000+ Hours of Manual Matching Off the Table, and How a Compliance Startup Got Acquired After Making Its AI Explain Itself

Aug 27, 2026

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6 min read

How a Clinical Trial Platform Took 1,000+ Hours of Manual Matching Off the Table, and How a Compliance Startup Got Acquired After Making Its AI Explain Itself

Plus a venture firm that put an AI assistant inside its LP data room and got 60+ hours a month back. Three builds from Bryson Greenwood of PressW, who answered five questions on how each one was done.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+5

How a $10B PE Firm Got 92% Weekly ChatGPT Use After Its First AI Project Failed

Aug 18, 2026

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8 min read

How a $10B PE Firm Got 92% Weekly ChatGPT Use After Its First AI Project Failed

The three-phase method Brian Benedict and Eliza used to turn a stalled ChatGPT Enterprise license into CIM write-ups in under two minutes, including why, in his words, they gave it "permission to say no." Plus the same team taking a receipts backlog from days to same-day in under four weeks, and the most-read cases in the library.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+6

How a PE-Backed SaaS Firm Found $700K Its AI Rollout Was Missing

Aug 7, 2026

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6 min read

How a PE-Backed SaaS Firm Found $700K Its AI Rollout Was Missing

The P&L-first playbook Jimmy Bijlani of AI Momentum Partners used to ship one workflow in four weeks. Plus Csongor Barabasi of Bonsai Labs on cutting healthcare time-to-hire 5X, and the most-read cases in the library this week.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+6

How an Acquisitive Manufacturer Collapsed 15 Systems Into One Source of Truth, and How a PE-Backed Distributor Cut Board Packs From Four Days to Four Hours

Jul 31, 2026

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6 min read

How an Acquisitive Manufacturer Collapsed 15 Systems Into One Source of Truth, and How a PE-Backed Distributor Cut Board Packs From Four Days to Four Hours

Case studies from Murali Vivekanandan of Ideas2IT and Yayati Tanwar of Pluto AI, both on giving PE-backed companies a real-time view of their own numbers. Plus the most-read cases in our AI Use Case Library this week.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+9

How an Injection Molding Manufacturer Replaced Days-Long Quoting With Seven-Click Instant Quote, and How a Finance Team Cut Month-End Close From 10 Days to 1

Jul 24, 2026

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6 min read

How an Injection Molding Manufacturer Replaced Days-Long Quoting With Seven-Click Instant Quote, and How a Finance Team Cut Month-End Close From 10 Days to 1

Case studies from Alex Gruebele and Chandler Gonzalez of Tau9 Labs, and Kenny Jen of QuantFi. Plus: more than 180 new cases added to the library last week.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+10

How a $1B Hedge Fund Cut Call Prep From 60 Minutes to 5, and How a Fortune 500 CPG Team Got Every Data Answer Right

Jul 17, 2026

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5 min read

How a $1B Hedge Fund Cut Call Prep From 60 Minutes to 5, and How a Fortune 500 CPG Team Got Every Data Answer Right

Case studies from Jay Singh of Casper Studios and Aanikh Kler of Lazer Technologies, both about getting work out of the analyst queue and trusting the answer. Plus this week's podcast with Jimmy Bijlani.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+5

How a Wind Power Operator Cut On-Site Repair Time 30%, and How a Research Firm Cut Report Hours 95%

Jul 7, 2026

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5 min read

How a Wind Power Operator Cut On-Site Repair Time 30%, and How a Research Firm Cut Report Hours 95%

Case studies from Jozef Petro of Sudolabs and Will Fernandez of Defyner, both about breaking AI work into stages and keeping a human at every gate.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson

Artificial Intelligence

+6

How a Restoration Firm Turned Its CEO's Negotiating Instinct Into Recovered Revenue on Every Job, and How a 70-Year-Old Manufacturer Cut Engineering Time 60% Without a New Hire

Jun 26, 2026

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5 min read

How a Restoration Firm Turned Its CEO's Negotiating Instinct Into Recovered Revenue on Every Job, and How a 70-Year-Old Manufacturer Cut Engineering Time 60% Without a New Hire

Case studies from Jack Soslow & Jack Weissenberger of Ciridae and Justin Massa & Jason Rubinstein of Remix Partners, both about doing more with the team you already have. Plus both firms' podcast interviews.

Stu Willson
Stu Willson
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Proof of Work: Applied AI Case Studies

Proof of Work: Applied AI Case Studies

Applied AI case studies and operator intelligence for private equity, mid-market, and enterprise leaders. A Pluris publication.


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