🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Google is following a familiar path for enterprise AI rollouts

• Talks with Blackstone and KKR match a playbook Google used in April 2026, when it announced similar partnerships with Thoma Bravo, Vista Equity Partners, and CVC, a Luxembourg-based investment firm 1.
• The Thoma Bravo and CVC deals go beyond software licenses. They are multi-year partnerships that give portfolio companies access to Google Cloud’s AI platform, including Gemini models. They also open sales paths through Google Cloud Marketplace and co-sell programs, plus support from Google engineers working with customers on technical problems 1.
• This gives Google a broad route into many companies at once. Thoma Bravo says it has acquired or invested in more than 580 software and technology companies with about US$305 billion in aggregate value 1.

Private equity firms are becoming channel partners in the AI platform race

• The deals aim to help portfolio companies adopt AI systems that handle tasks with limited human direction. They also push firms toward AI-first operating models and products instead of vendor-by-vendor rollouts 2.
• That model can beat one-off projects because a private equity firm can spread similar technical changes across many portfolio companies 1.
• The money at stake is large. Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, says Vista expects AI could rewrite the software industry’s Rule of 40, an investment benchmark that combines revenue growth with profit margin, lifting the bar to 50% or 60% 3.
• Portfolio-wide deals let cloud providers deepen their foothold across large groups of software and other companies at once. That makes private equity portfolios a live contest in the race for enterprise AI adoption 1.