# Can AI screen a CIM or teaser?

> AI can screen a CIM or teaser: extract the facts, test them against fund criteria and draft call questions. It cannot verify the seller's numbers.

Source: https://forwardeployed.work/guides/ai-cim-screening
Published 2026-10-09 · Updated 2026-10-09 · ForwarD²eployed editorial

Yes, AI can screen a CIM or teaser as a first pass. It extracts the deal facts, checks them against your fund's criteria, flags gaps and inconsistencies, and drafts questions for a first call. It cannot verify the seller's numbers or judge the business, so a person should review every screen before the team passes or takes the call.

## Key takeaways

- A good screen marks each fund criterion pass, fail or unclear, and never passes a criterion without data.
- A CIM is the seller's marketing document, so a screen can test it for consistency and fit, not for truth.
- Back-test any screen on past CIMs where you already know the right answer before relying on it.

## What can an AI screen pull out of a CIM?

Anything the document states: the business, the numbers, the deal and what is missing.

A [teaser](https://www.corporatesolutions.euronext.com/glossary/teaser) is a short, anonymous document that opens a sale process; buyers who sign a [confidentiality agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement) then receive the CIM, a detailed company-specific memorandum that can run [from 30 to over 150 pages](https://www.fe.training/free-resources/investment-banking/confidential-information-memorandum/). A first-pass screen of either can produce:

- **A deal snapshot:** what the company does, its customers, its ownership and the process timetable.
- **The financials:** revenue, EBITDA, margins and growth, with the page each figure came from.
- **A criteria check:** each fund criterion with the target's actual value, marked pass, fail or unclear.
- **Inconsistencies:** figures that differ between the summary, the tables and the appendix.
- **Bull and bear cases,** and the red flags behind the bear case.
- **First-call questions,** aimed at the gaps the document leaves.

Teasers are short, hide the company's name and may give ranges instead of exact figures, so expect more criteria marked unclear. The useful output there is whether to sign the agreement and ask for the CIM.

## What can't an AI screen tell you?

Whether the seller's numbers and claims are true, and whether the business is one your fund should own.

A CIM is written by the seller's advisers to market the company. A screen can check the document against itself and against your criteria; it cannot check adjusted EBITDA against the books, confirm customer relationships or judge management. That is diligence work.

Reading accuracy is the other limit. In the [FinanceBench study](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.11944) of November 2023, a leading model with document retrieval answered 81% of 150 questions about public company filings incorrectly or not at all; feeding the relevant pages straight into the model did better. Models have improved since, and CIMs differ from public filings, so the number that matters is how a screen performs on your own documents.

## How do you set up a screen you can trust?

Write your criteria down, insist on unclear instead of guesses, and test the screen on deals you have already decided.

1. **Make criteria testable.** Revenue and EBITDA ranges, sectors, geography, ownership and valuation guardrails, each a threshold, not a feeling.
2. **Require a source for every figure,** with the page it came from, and unclear wherever the document is silent.
3. **Back-test.** Run the screen on a batch of past CIMs with known outcomes and compare its verdicts with your team's.
4. **Study the misses,** both the deals it would have wrongly passed and the ones it would have wrongly dropped.
5. **Keep a person on every verdict.** The screen recommends; a deal professional decides.
6. **Check the agreement and the tool.** Make sure the confidentiality agreement allows the processing, and that the tool keeps uploads private and does not train on them.

## What does Forward Deployed's deal screen produce?

Ask for **Deal Screening (CIMs and Teasers)** in your AI assistant, add the CIM or teaser and your fund's criteria, and you get a one-to-two-page screening memo and a five-to-seven-slide partner discussion deck.

The memo gives one verdict, Pass, Further Diligence or Hard Pass, with the rationale, a deal snapshot, a criteria screen of target against actual, bull and bear cases, five to ten first-call questions, red flags and data inconsistencies. Each criterion is marked Pass, Fail or Unclear, and none passes without data. You can add up to 12 files.

The price is shown before it runs, and deliverables cost at most 300 credits, or $30, at [today's prices](https://forwardeployed.work/pricing). Files stay private to your engagement and are never used to train AI models ([security](https://forwardeployed.work/about#security)). Other deal deliverables are on the [services page](https://forwardeployed.work/services#deals), and [how private equity firms use AI](https://forwardeployed.work/guides/ai-for-private-equity) puts screening in the context of the whole deal cycle.

## Frequently asked questions

### Can AI screen a teaser as well as a CIM?

Yes, but a teaser says less. It is short, anonymous and may give ranges instead of exact figures, so more of the fund's criteria come back unclear. The useful question for a teaser screen is whether the opportunity deserves a signed confidentiality agreement and a request for the full CIM.

### Can you upload a CIM to an AI tool under a confidentiality agreement?

Only if the agreement and the tool allow it. Many agreements limit who may see the information and for what purpose, so check the terms, and check that the tool keeps uploads private to your team, deletes them on request and does not use them to train models. If unsure, ask the seller's adviser.

### Does an AI screen replace the first call with management?

No. It prepares the call: it shows which criteria the document leaves unclear, where the numbers disagree and what to ask first. The call is where the deal team tests the story, the people and the answers the CIM leaves out.

## Sources and further reading

- [Teaser](https://www.corporatesolutions.euronext.com/glossary/teaser). Glossary, Euronext Corporate Solutions.
- [Confidential Information Memorandum](https://www.fe.training/free-resources/investment-banking/confidential-information-memorandum/). Financial Edge, training resource.
- [Non-disclosure agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement). Encyclopedia entry.
- [FinanceBench: A New Benchmark for Financial Question Answering](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.11944). Pranab Islam and others, preprint, November 2023.

## Cite this guide

ForwarD²eployed editorial. “Can AI screen a CIM or teaser?” ForwarD²eployed, October 9, 2026. https://forwardeployed.work/guides/ai-cim-screening