SuperReturn North America 2025 Q&A with JP Grant: The Asymmetric Upside of AI
JP Grant is the Head of Partnerships at Brightwave, where he leads go-to-market efforts with a customer-first mindset. He started his career at Goldman Sachs, where he spent six years working closely with both public and private investors at the firm. More recently, he has led GTM efforts across a number of FinTech startups, where he leveraged his finance background to understand and address the most salient pain points for customers.
About Brightwave: Brightwave is the leading AI financial research and due diligence platform for investment professionals, transforming how teams analyze opportunities. Purpose-built for financial research, Brightwave processes thousands of pages of deal documents, filings, transcripts, proprietary information and other critical documents in minutes — surfacing the most relevant information and ensuring rigorous source verification.
Introduction: Brightwave at SuperReturn
Private market activity is heating up this year, and the topics of conversation at the SuperReturn North America 2025 conference reflected the industry’s growing interest in alternative investments, AI technologies and innovative industries. In this exclusive Q&A, Brightwave’s Head of Partnerships, JP Grant, discusses his key takeaways from the event, including the rise of a “golden age” of private credit and the asymmetric upside to AI adoption for investment teams.
Private Capital Ecosystem Trends: The Acceleration of Private Credit & AI Use Cases
Q: Let’s start off high level. What were some overall impressions of the SuperReturn North America 2025 conference?
JP: First off, it’s always great to be in Miami! We had a phenomenal event on Sunday night, with an incredible turnout — GPs, LPs flying in from Asia, and service providers from across the private capital ecosystem. The conference itself was a fantastic blend of senior speakers from major firms like Ares and Churchill and lots of informal networking opportunities.
We came away with not just great new relationships, but also valuable context on how forward-thinking asset managers view AI, the future of work in financial services and the trajectory of private equity versus private credit. Overall, it was an amazing experience.
Q: Let’s dig into some key themes you mentioned. What’s an insight or an interesting trend that you observed from the conference?
JP: Over the past few years, one trend in the private capital ecosystem has been the emergence of private credit, where you’ve seen a period of higher interest rates — private capital firms filling voids left by traditional bank lenders, with an ability to move faster than their bank counterparts. These trends have been exemplified by many traditionally private equity firms launching private credit arms.
In tandem, we saw a lot of activity in the PE market in 2020 and 2021, and now funds are hitting their shelf life. Investors are facing questions about what’s next for private equity with challenges selling assets and LPs still needing to allocate capital. It’ll be really interesting to see how these trends play out over the next couple of years.
Q: Did anything at the conference surprise you or make you rethink a prior conviction you had?
JP: One big surprise was just how universally accepted AI has become among top-tier firms. On the first day, there were several executives on stage from BlackRock, Mill Creek Capital and CF Private Equity who openly acknowledged that AI is here to stay. Each of those firms was talking through how either their portfolio companies are implementing AI or their investment teams are evaluating AI.
And it's a stark contrast from what we saw 18 months ago, where there was a lot of reticence in adopting the technology. What we’ve seen change is this increasing understanding of the capabilities of the technology, and firms looking to either build in-house or find vendors that are able to satisfy their bespoke needs.
For me, it was validating. This whole time, we’ve been pitching the tangible time savings and cost efficiencies that come with AI-driven workflows, and to see that acknowledged by the most senior people across financial services was exciting.
AI-Enabled Investment Workflows: Deal Volume & Process Alignment
Q: How do you see AI platforms playing a role in this continued growth of private credit?
JP: I see it happening in two major ways.
First, on deal flow management: as private credit managers absorb deal flow that once went through traditional banks, their pipelines are swelling. And so, it’ll be really important to have technology in place that helps teams be comprehensive in evaluating all of the deals that come in, allowing investors to streamline their processes and quickly understand the most topical, relevant points that are tailored to the adjacent or existing views.
Second, it’ll also be important for these firms to have solutions that really align with their workflows. While ChatGPT and similar consumer-grade tools are a great start, the threshold for quality and accuracy is a lot higher in an investment context. Purpose-built solutions — like Brightwave — are building blueprints and shareable reports that cater to each investor’s bespoke thesis. This means that teams can impart proprietary views within Brightwave and get the specific outputs that, traditionally, an associate would have manually drafted.
Q: With more firms looking to integrate AI, what pitfalls should they be careful about?
JP: There are three main points I would think about.
First, choosing the right partner: the technology is moving very fast, and it's important to think about not only where things are today, but where things are going. Having a team that is flexible enough to service you both now and years from now, as the technology evolves, means having people who understand the technology at a very granular and deep level. I think this winds up being something that is differentiated.
Second, I would look into testing quality and accuracy. There’s a lot of hype around large language models, and it’s easy to get caught up in a demo that looks great. Ultimately, it’s important for the analysis outputs to be accurate when you trace back to that underlying source material, so you can trust the claims that are being made.
Third is ensuring a firm-fit solution. The best AI solutions slot directly into existing workflows and feel intuitive to use, rather than forcing users to reinvent processes. At Brightwave, we see that as a differentiator for us — having the technical talent to build cutting-edge AI solutions paired with professionals that have been in seat at major financial services companies, we can marry technological precision with the tangible insights investors require.
Q: How do these firms decide between building AI solutions in-house or buying them from a vendor like Brightwave?
JP: In terms of build vs. buy, usually what we’re seeing is some correlation to AUM. Not in every instance, but generally, the largest firms have the in-house resources to build technology that’s specific to what different funds or groups are looking for. But even then, they might create a “baseline” tool that covers 80% of workflows, but doesn’t necessarily offer that level of depth or granularity that any one team requires for their day-to-day.
Smaller or mid-sized firms often consider bringing in a third-party platform first, to test the value AI can provide without making a massive upfront investment in proprietary tech. The big difference here is that third-party solutions can dedicate 100% of their time and resources to refining the product into a phenomenal investor experience. What this means is that there is an “asymmetrical upside” to adopting AI for investors.
Q: Can you elaborate more on what you mean by “asymmetrical upside”?
JP: Sure. The cost of most AI platforms out there doesn’t come close to the salary of a junior or middle-management team member at an investment firm. If an AI tool meaningfully improves productivity — even just by 5% or 10% — across a firm’s entire Associate or VP bench, that’s a huge time and cost saving.
The use cases are pretty tangible. We can save hours across various diligence workflows, whether that's creating an IC memo, assembling questions for a management presentation in seconds, screening a teaser, benchmarking quantitative figures from public comps or understanding commentary from management teams across your public comps.
If you’re buying a third-party solution like Brightwave, you’re not only realizing these efficiency gains, but you’re also getting exposure to what's happening and where the world is moving in a low-cost, low-commitment fashion.
And so, to not adopt AI at all means you’re essentially betting that this technology can’t improve your existing workflows — which is a tough argument when the evidence is so strong that it does.
The Future of AI in Research & Diligence: Value Creation
Q: Finally, where do you see AI in finance heading over the next 18 to 24 months?
JP: We’ve already seen an explosion of AI solutions in the finance space, with what feels like new tools for new asset classes popping up every week or every month. There is a ton of validation that AI is here to stay. But in terms of what we’re expecting a year from now, I believe there’s going to be a real reckoning for firms on whether they add value or not.
Whether people are using the product — and how often (daily, weekly) — will become important. There’s a finite pool of private and public investors, and they're not going to want to buy multiple solutions. They're going to want one thing that can do as much as possible for them.
I’m personally very excited, because we have a rockstar team of talent across all of our engineering and commercial teams, and we’re well-positioned to capture what the future has in store for Brightwave.
Closing Thoughts
The AI landscape in finance continues to evolve at breakneck speed, with new use cases constantly being developed and tested. From managing new streams of deal flow to refining existing investment processes, the payoff for adopting AI is seeing increased validation. From the chatter on the ground at SuperReturn North America, it’s increasingly clear that now is the time to pay attention to these shifts in order to not miss the asymmetric upside that AI solutions can deliver.
If you’d like to learn more about how Brightwave is helping top investors streamline workflows and gain an edge, reach out to us today.
