Carne Group research finds 96% of private credit managers using AI

Carne Group research cited by Alternative Credit Investor finds 96 per cent of private credit managers using artificial intelligence to support their investment strategies. The remaining 4 per cent intend to do so within 12 to 18 months, according to the trade publication's 22 October feature.

The applications Carne identifies are mostly operational: data analysis, risk management and trading processes. The figure records whether managers use AI at all, not how much of a strategy depends on it. Anthony Sage of Termgrid told the publication that every firm in private credit has "crossed the Rubicon" on integrating the technology, while the way managers use it is "disparate."

Allvue Systems' Brad Small says AI could let a deal team screen 10 opportunities in the time it previously took to look at one. Small, the firm's head of product for credit, argues the advantage sits with smaller managers, which he describes as "nimbler" and facing fewer compliance processes than larger firms.

Gilion, an investment platform headed by Axel Bruzelius that lends to high-growth technology companies, uses agentic AI for deal screening and investment memos. Bruzelius says the technology has helped the firm identify "less competitive opportunities" in sourcing. Its AI use splits evenly between monitoring and due diligence, cutting the time and manpower the process takes.

The same feature describes a $2tn (£1.5tn) private credit market in which capital is concentrating among established and larger managers. If AI lowers the cost of reviewing a deal, the minimum team size needed to cover a sector falls, but that is Small's mechanism, not a measured result.

Carne's 96 per cent measures adoption, not depth of use, and the feature notes "lingering scepticism" about the technology alongside it.