AI Investing Comes of Age: Private Equity Shifts from Platform Creation to Platform Expansion

For years, the AI investment sector looked more like venture capital territory: frontier technology, evolving business models, and valuations that required investors to take a significant leap of faith.

Our M&A database has tracked more than 1,200 AI-focused transactions since 2015, including 929 platform investments and 314 add-on acquisitions.

While platform investments continue to grow, the sharper rise in add-on activity points to a notable shift in strategy. Rather than focusing solely on acquiring AI companies, PE investors are increasingly using M&A to strengthen existing platforms, expand capabilities, and accelerate growth.

To understand this evolution, it helps to follow the technology itself. Each phase of AI development has been accompanied by a distinct shift in investment activity, from early experimentation (2015 - 2020) to platform building (2021 - 2023) and, more recently, platform expansion (2024 - 2026).

Platform investments in AI reached record levels in 2025, reflecting continued investor confidence in the sector to produce real value to end customers, real cash flow, and exceptional growth.

Where the capital is going

Across both new platforms and add-ons, investment concentrates in the same handful of sectors. Ranked by activity, the most-targeted categories for private equity investments in AI are:

1. Healthcare
2. Core AI Platforms
3. Software
4. Finance
5. Marketing
6. Cybersecurity
7. Workforce
8. Customer Service
9. Retail
10. Government

Three of these stand out.

Healthcare: The leading destination for new AI platforms.

Regulatory clarity, large quantities of proprietary data, and durable demand make it a natural home for foundational businesses that can scale within compliant environments.

Core AI Platforms: The horizontal layer that cuts across every other category.

Core AI Platforms are the foundational infrastructure layer for AI. This category ranks near the top of both platform and add-on lists because its capabilities feed all market sectors.

Software: The engine of add-on activity.

AI found some of its earliest and most obvious enterprise applications in software development. This early focus and most obvious application of AI, coupled with the recurring revenue from software companies makes them quickly accretive, exactly what a buy-and-build thesis needs.

 The firms below have been most active in executing this strategy.

Most Active PE Firms for AI Platform Investments (2015 – 2026 YTD)

The following private equity investors have played a leading role in the growth of AI-focused M&A with the most AI-platform investments.

• Insight Partners
• Sorenson Capital
• Elaia Partners
• Battery Ventures
• Thoma Bravo
• Technology Crossover Ventures
• EDBI
• DFJ Growth
• PSG
• Movens Capital
• DGF
• CPP Investments
• K1 Investment Management
• Valor Equity Partners
• Stripes

Most Active PE Firms for AI Add-On Acquisitions (2015 – 2026 YTD)

The following private equity investors made the most AI add-on investments over this period.

• Insight Partners
• CPP Investments
• Thoma Bravo
• Silver Lake Partners
• HgCapital
• Vista Equity Partners
• Marlin Equity Partners
• K1 Investment Management
• PSG
• Carlyle Group
• TA Associates
• Battery Ventures
• General Atlantic
• DFJ Growth
• New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

AI investing is beginning to follow a familiar private equity playbook. As platform creation gives way to platform expansion, strategic acquisitions are becoming a key driver of growth. That said, AI remains a high-risk (and potentially high-reward) investment category as the underlying technology is moving and shifting faster than anything before it.

The transactions behind this analysis are drawn from the PrivateEquityInfo.com M&A Research Database. Explore the full dataset to track which PE platform companies in your sector are actively acquiring AI companies as an add-on strategy.