Use AI like the sharpest analyst on your team. Not a search engine.
Your firm rolled out Copilot and said “get good at AI.” This is how. You’ll configure a reasoning partner that pushes back instead of agreeing, then run a six-week practice program built around the work you actually do — credit memos, CIMs, covenants, models, IC and LP communications.
Most people treat AI like Google. That’s why it disappoints them.
They type a question, get a Wikipedia paragraph back, and conclude it’s overhyped. The people getting real leverage do the opposite: they give it a job, they tell it who they are and what their firm cares about, and they make it argue with them until the work is sharp.
Done right, the math flips. Instead of writing 80% of a memo and editing 20%, you direct the work and edit the last 20%. The judgment stays yours. The grind goes away.
Search engine
“What are the key risks in an LBO?” → a generic list you can’t use in a meeting.
Reasoning partner
“I’m reviewing a 5.5x sponsor-backed deal with 30% add-backs. Write the three strongest pushback arguments I should bring to IC.” → something you walk into committee with.
Your first 30 minutes
You don’t need to read everything before you get value. Three steps, half an hour, and you’ll have a configured AI and one genuinely useful piece of work from a live deal.
Skim the idea
Five short rules that change how AI behaves for you. Read fast — you can go deeper later.
2Configure your AI
Paste a ready-made “operating profile” into Copilot, ChatGPT, or Claude so every answer from here on knows your role and your firm’s standards.
3Run one real prompt
Open the prompt library, copy the “Summarize a CIM for credit review” prompt, point it at a live deal, and read what comes back. That’s your win.
Set a 30-minute timer. Walk through the three steps above with one deal you’re already working on. By the end you’ll have a configured AI and a CIM summary you can actually use. That’s the whole point — a real win on day one.
Zero to the person your team asks about AI
Six stops. The first hour gives you the foundation. The real product is the daily practice — small reps, on real deals, until it becomes instinct.
The Five Rules
The mental model. How to give AI jobs, give it context, brief it like a new analyst, steer it, and make it fight you. Plus the one nobody teaches: how you actually get good.
2Get Configured
Exact, current steps for Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude — custom instructions, memory, and the Copilot power moves most people never open. Ready-to-paste profiles included.
3Before & After
The same question, asked by a default AI and a configured one. See the gap before you build the habit.
4The First 30 Days
Twenty drills, weekdays for four weeks. Fifteen minutes each, done at your desk on real materials. This is the centerpiece — if you do one thing, do this.
5Real Workflows
End-to-end walkthroughs with exact prompts: a CIM to a presentable IC memo in four hours, and a quarter of portfolio data to a PM-ready update.
6The Play
The part nobody says out loud: how to turn being good at AI into visibility, a bigger bonus, and an earlier promotion — without sounding like a hype guy.
The prompt library is your everyday tool — copy-paste prompts for screening, CIM and covenant reading, comparison tables, diligence lists, redlines, memos, and email. One click copies each one.
A note before you begin
You’re smart, busy, and a little skeptical of AI — good. That’s the right starting point. You’ve probably opened a chatbot once, gotten a generic answer, and moved on. Nothing here asks you to become technical, learn to code, or care about how any of this is built. There’s no app to install and nothing to set up beyond pasting a few paragraphs into a settings box.
Here’s the deal: do the first 30 minutes today, on a real deal, and you’ll feel it immediately. Then do one fifteen-minute drill a day. In six weeks you won’t be “someone who uses AI.” You’ll be the person at your firm who actually knows how — producing sharper work in half the time, walking into IC with the answers already prepped, and quietly pulling ahead of everyone still copying prompts off LinkedIn.
That’s it. No hype, no magic phrases. Just a better way to work.