Unwritten, the climate risk platform for private markets, hosted the second event of its AI & Sustainability Series in New York. Hosted by Dr. Phillip Marks (CEO, Unwritten), the session brought together Griffin Hyde (VP, Malk Partners), Joe Indvik (Ex-Climate Lead, Ares Management), Radhika Venkatraman (CEO, ArbisAI) and Ravin Thambapillai (CEO, CredalAI). The panel debated whether AI automation is solving private equity's data problems at the source or creating a 'black box' of abstraction that obscures operational realities.

Key Take-Aways

1. AI already saves private equity deal teams significant due diligence time. AI is strong at scanning the web for negative press and extracting themes from scattered due diligence documents, saving upwards of 100 research hours per deal.

2. Data quality is the binding constraint on AI in private equity. The panel warned that US general partners (GPs) face a 'garbage data in, garbage insights out' problem: automation layered on poor source data hides weaknesses rather than fixing them.

3. AI is not yet ready to make go/no-go investment recommendations. Panellists pointed to AI's 'excessive agreeableness' and its current inability to withstand the rigorous interrogation typical of a human deal team.

How is AI changing private equity due diligence?

The panel focused on three areas where AI is reshaping how private equity firms assess sustainability and risk in due diligence.

Accelerating insight-driven decision

AI tools can scan public sources for negative press and pull recurring themes from large sets of due diligence documents. This frees deal and sustainability teams to spend their time on judgement rather than collection.

Keeping humans accountable for investment decisions

Because AI models tend to agree with the user, final investment calls still need a human deal team that can interrogate the evidence. The panel saw validation frameworks and multi-agent systems as the route to trustworthy AI governance.

Transforming the sustainability workforce

Looking ahead to 2030, the panel expects sustainability expertise to be democratised across private equity firms. The focus will move from simple carbon scoring to holistic modelling of nature and transition risks, with every professional managing specialised AI agents that translate complex risk data into granular, business-impact language.

About Unwritten

Unwritten is a London-based climate risk platform for private markets. Its platform, Unwritten AI, helps private equity and infrastructure investors assess physical, transition and nature risk at fund, portfolio company and site level.

The platform uses artificial intelligence to automate complex climate risk data workflows and drive value-creation opportunities for private markets investors, asset managers, and corporate risk leaders. Unwritten helps private market leaders and sustainability teams move beyond minimum compliance to actively manage risk, improve resilience and build operational resilience that creates value at the PortCo level.