Why AI programs at PE portfolio companies stall at the same organizational seam, and what to do about it.
Blake Aber · Predicate Ventures · 2026
There's a failure mode I've watched play out at enough portfolio companies that I've given it a name: the ownership dyad.
It goes like this. The AI program is running. The product manager owns the roadmap (what the AI should do). Engineering owns the deployment (how it does it). Both parties are competent. Both are aligned on the goal. And the AI initiative quietly stalls anyway, usually somewhere between the promising pilot and the production system that was supposed to follow.
The mechanism is diffuse accountability at the decision layer.
