Integrating AI effectively: 4 steps playbook to go from idea to ROI
- 115K
- Dec 8, 2025
- 2 min read
115K, a european venture capital fund dedicated to financial services industries with a strong focus on data and AI, created this guide based on feedback from its portfolio and industry experts to transform the hype around AI into operational execution.
The race against time against competition from AI-native startups
The reduction in time to iterate on an idea and move to a working product is dramatic. A new wave of AI-native startups is rewriting the rules of velocity: Lovable reached $200 million in ARR in one year with fewer than 50 employees , and a quarter of the startups of Y Combinator's 2025 cohort are already generating 95% of their code with AI. The question is no longer whether you should implement AI, but whether you're doing it fast enough.
The vital challenge of optimizing costs to lengthen the runway
In a context of tighter financing, capital efficiency is paramount. AI offers a unique opportunity: to decouple revenue growth from cost structure to extend your runway while continuing to grow.
AI is no longer a competitive advantage; it's the new market standard.
Artificial intelligence is emerging as a fundamental pillar of business competitiveness by acting on three main levers: operational efficiency, customer relations, and innovation. The challenge, according to McKinsey, is not simply to adopt AI, but to make it profitable: only 39% see a direct impact on their EBIT. Implementing AI effectively is no longer an option but a strategic imperative.
Among the most advanced startups, the results are already there.
80% of the startups in our portfolio consider AI a priority, and 70% already have solutions in production. The most advanced have very concrete operational results, some examples of which are presented in our guide. For example, one startup in our portfolio has automated the management of more than 6,000 leads , another managed to divide by 6 certain operational costs.
Moving from idea to ROI is complex. We offer a methodology and concrete examples to help you maximize the opportunities offered by AI:
1) Infuse an AI Culture at All Levels
2) Generate and foster ideas with one or more "AI Champions"
3) Ensure the transition to experimentation and industrialization with an AI Product Owner
4) Implement appropriate governance
Download our playbook below:
