The Jefferies 2025 Private Growth Conference brought together hundreds of top bankers, investors, founders, and tech executives to discuss the sector’s key trends and developments. The insights below are drawn from interviews and panels with conference attendees.
In 2023, generative AI was already reshaping the business landscape, but some important questions remained. Chief among them: how would these technologies meaningfully impact businesses, given their unclear enterprise applications?
Today, that question is largely answered. If 2023 was the year of AI hype, 2024 was the year AI went mainstream.
Three-quarters of businesses now use AI in at least one function, and generative AI is projected to drive $1.1 trillion in revenue by 2028. Big Tech is expected to invest a record $300 billion in AI this year.
At Jefferies’ Private Growth Conference, sector leaders discussed the trajectory of AI adoption and how it’s shaping dealmaking in 2025.
Embedding AI Into Everyday Decision-Making
“The AI ecosystem is maturing exponentially,” said Raphael Bejarano, Co-Head of Global Investment Banking at Jefferies. “Every year is a period of exponential change. I think we’ve seen that with the companies at the Private Growth Conference — their monetization, their actual utility. We’re beginning to see the green shoots where adoption is really going to happen”.
One of the companies making AI easier to adopt is Sigma Computing, a cloud-native analytics platform that helps non-technical users work with complex data. By layering AI on top of traditional business intelligence workflows, Sigma is making data more accessible to everyday decision-makers.
“If you reduce it a little bit, what AI means for us is an access method,” said Mike Palmer, CEO of Sigma. “We talk a lot about making access to data simple. There are a billion and a half people with spreadsheets in the world, and we thought that was the lingua franca of business. But actually, the lingua franca of business is just language. So for us, AI is just another way to allow an average person to easily get an answer to a question [from data].”
The latest McKinsey survey on generative AI adoption found that companies that successfully integrate AI into their workflows are already seeing meaningful EBIT gains. While adoption varies by industry, most companies are at least using AI in marketing and sales, with plans to expand into other business functions.
That perspective was echoed by Mark Crane, a Partner at General Catalyst who has led several investments in applied AI. He described how AI is reaching every part of the business landscape: “Generative AI is everywhere. Every vertical has been touched by this and will be touched by this,” he said. “Public safety, shipping, healthcare — pick your favorite vertical.”
AI Is Already Moving the Top Line
One major topic at this year’s conference was how AI could reshape performance and growth expectations in the years ahead. With adoption now mainstream, when should investors expect to see impacts on company financials?
Gaurav Kittur, Global Co-Head of Internet Investment Banking at Jefferies, suggested that impact may come sooner than expected.
“I was just talking to a CFO . . . his business grew more in the last five days than it had in the past year, driven by an AI algorithm that just started to work,” Kittur said. “AI is transformative. We’re starting to see the impact on top lines, on revenue, on profitability.”
Ravi Mhatre, Founding Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, has observed similar trends. “We’re seeing it happen,” he said. “It’s more than just pockets. The thing that’s most attention-getting for us is the speed with which revenues in these enterprise sectors is starting to happen… Usually in enterprise it takes longer, but these technologies are solving real business problems, so adoption is happening very rapidly.”
The Private Growth Conference also featured several entrepreneurs who spoke directly to how AI is driving financial impact for their business.
Dakota Smith, President and Co-Founder of Hopper, noted the effect on operating costs: “[AI] lowered our cost of customer service by 70 percent,” he said. “And it actually increased customer satisfaction… because they get instant assistance.”
For Sellers, an AI Narrative Is No Longer Optional
AI is also having a growing impact on transaction activity. Much of this is being driven by strategic buyers, as two-thirds of business leaders plan to use M&A to strengthen their AI capabilities over the next year. Private equity is also active in AI-driven deals, as sponsors look for ways to apply AI to drive efficiency across their portfolio companies.
“Every seller right now — frankly, whether or not you’re a tech company — has to have an AI story,” said Jon Gegenheimer, Managing Director in Technology Investment Banking at Jefferies. Many buyers, he explained, are already evaluating targets based on their AI exposure: “What they want to understand is, net-net, is the target I’m looking at a beneficiary of AI, or is AI an antagonist?”
That perspective was echoed by Stefani Silverstein, Co-Head of Global TMT Investment Banking at Jefferies. “It is very much not just a buzzword anymore; it is the reality,” she said. “Whether [a company] has a solution for AI, is the solution for AI, or is at risk of disintermediation from AI — they need to have an answer”
She emphasized that buyers are pressing for clarity. “It’s relevant for almost every single deal,” she said. “Having a solution, a story around [AI] that can be articulated to investors, to the board, to the investment committee is critical. It’s really driving a lot of the activity, at the very least, the dialog”
Continuing Up the AI Adoption Curve
AI is already reshaping operations, performance, and deal activity, but many still believe we’re in the early innings.
“Most of us are not really using the full capacity [of AI],” said Cameron Lester, Co-Head of Global TMT Investment Banking at Jefferies. “We all can see there’s a Ferrari engine out there, but most of us are still driving much more modest cars.”
For companies and investors, the real work now lies in building the systems, talent, and discipline needed to put that power to use in a measurable way. And as this year’s conference showed, that effort is already in motion.
