Something shifted last night that I am still processing.
I attended a SaaS benchmarking webinar. I went specifically to gather data: we had been developing thinking around AI’s impact on SaaS businesses and needed current market evidence to ground it. As slides appeared on screen, I used a Claude Desktop shortcut most people do not know exists: a double tap of the Option key[1] captures whatever is on screen and feeds it directly into your active project. Each graph, each data slide, landed instantly into a project already holding prior research, strategic context, and earlier thinking on the same topic.
By the time the webinar ended, a substantive white paper had been drafted. I still have not received the slides from the organisers.
This is not about writing speed.
What felt different was that synthesis was happening in real time, against existing context, during the event. The gap between information arriving and insight emerging compressed almost entirely.
Why it matters
That matters because the capability being augmented here is not administrative. It is one of the things senior leaders have historically been paid most for: absorbing complex information quickly, identifying patterns, challenging assumptions, and asking the right questions while the conversation is still happening.
Executives, operating partners, investment committee members, board chairs. Roles where the quality of contextual reasoning during the meeting matters as much as preparation before it.
The emerging pattern is not AI as a note taker. It is AI as a contextual layer operating around board meetings, investment reviews, governance forums, and strategy sessions in real time.
Human judgement, governance, and accountability remain irreducibly human. But if AI begins to augment the synthesis capability that defines high-value knowledge work, the gap between a senior leader operating with that layer and one without may start to look structural rather than marginal.
The white paper itself, The Cross Portco Intelligence Advantage, is a fairly technical read, and the primary reason for mentioning it is to illustrate the workflow rather than the content. That said, if you work in private equity or follow the SaaS market, the underlying argument about knowledge layers, portfolio intelligence, and multiple defence may be worth your time in its own right. To give a flavour of it:
A portfolio-wide knowledge layer changes this. Patterns extracted from one portco become queryable assets for others. The heuristic developed by a finance director at a professional services firm becomes available to the operations lead at a fintech. The negotiation playbook proven in one sector informs procurement in another.
From The Cross Portco Intelligence Advantage, Tanhill.ai, May 2026
I am curious whether others using AI this way in high-stakes meetings see it as a marginal improvement or something more fundamental.
If you would like to explore how AI could support your board or investment committee, I would be delighted to compare notes. There is more about our services here on the website, or you can get in touch directly.
This article was first shared as a post on LinkedIn.
Sources
- Claude Help Center, Use quick entry with Claude Desktop on Mac.