Pitchbook AI Disrupting GE/VC and GPT4

I've had some interesting conversations about Pitchbook's AI and other AI sourcing tools with seniors in Tech PE/Growth where sourcing is important. 

The main thing is that GPT in its current form did not have access to the internet and that made it less valuable for finding companies as the landscape is changing so often and each day companies are going under or coming up, especially in VC. Now with GPT-4 Plugins it'll be different as it will have access to the entire internet. So in terms of discovering companies, maybe there will be an edge that AI competent sourcing teams could use. STILL, some of the best deals in growth equity are the ones that no one is looking at, this means bootstrapped companies with little investor activity who are hidden from the main channels investors use to find companies; the only way you can invest in these companies is through a human touch. Sourcing through connecting with founders, cold calls and emails, understanding the business and industry, and showing how your firm can add value directly. An AI cannot do this and it isn't as simple as identifying a company; you have to essentially be a salesperson, a very human-centric job.

Also, I was told that he wasn't sure how accurate Pitchbook's tool will be for investing in earlier-stage companies because the quantitative information it uses is not really that indicative of future success in early-stage investing. The earlier you go, the less the quantitative models will be important as the qualitative fit is more integral and there is far more randomness associated with how startups succeed and fail. The person I spoke to made it clear that if anyone uses it as the sole heuristic for early stage investing they will inevitably hit a roadblock. It'll be one tool but it won't take away a VC's job; the same way Pitchbook didn't take away any jobs from the sourcing analysts, it just gave them more information to look at and use.

I think VC and Growth Equity, industries where sourcing is incredibly important, are actually the MOST resistant to AI disruption. Sourcing as a skill set is not quantitative or something that can be replaced by AI like a quant HF. At the base of it, it requires being able to connect with founders and creators and being someone who can explain how their firm can add value. These tools will just augment the way these companies are discovered in the same way that VCs went from dialing people from the Yellow Pages to using Crunchbase employee numbers to estimate potential revenue; they're just tools.

My apologies if I rambled a bit, these are just my initial thoughts.