AI, Defense, and a New Private Markets Playbook with Ash Lawrence

Private markets are quietly being rewritten in real time—and in this conversation, Ash Lawrence explains why AI, private credit, and defence could define who wins and who gets left behind in 2026. In this episode of Insight is Capital, host Pierre Daillie sits down with Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners, to unpack AGF Capital Partners’ 2026 - The Annual - Private Markets Outlook. Against a backdrop of geopolitical volatility, AI acceleration, shifting credit dynamics, and renewed defence spending, Lawrence lays out five structural themes reshaping private equity, private credit, and alternative investments. The conversation explores how allocators can separate signal from noise, manage emerging concentration risks, navigate liquidity mismatches in retail private markets, and position portfolios for a world where traditional assumptions no longer apply. From AI infrastructure and mid-market private credit to defence, security, and the evolving role of private capital in public objectives, this episode offers a clear-eyed, practitioner’s view of where private markets are headed—and what investors need to understand to participate intelligently.