Roundtable discussion about AI and Dealmaking

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming dealmaking with speed, insights and opportunities. It’s allowing M&A professionals to become “sticky advisors” - working with clients well before and after deals have been struck and helping them improve business longer term. And this is just the start…

But what challenges does AI bring in terms of accuracy, reliability and credibility? What new skills are needed to make the best of the technology? And what strategies must dealmakers put in place to get the most out of AI, for both themselves and their clients?

Amanda Betts, manager, Provantage Corporate Finance

AI allows us to build a quicker view of businesses, such as understanding where they operate geographically and the competitive landscape they operate in. We're getting better at identifying targets and proactively chasing those targets by sharing knowledge and activity tracking. It enables us to foresee issues earlier, so that we can better position ourselves early on to protect those rights and prevent any value loss later. The best way to protect against problems such as price chipping is by having early visibility of what issues could eventually lead to problems and heading them off.

It not only helps us capture the information we're gathering in the firm more efficiently, but also to digest and share information more efficiently because we're no longer waiting on people writing up notes and circulating them.

As we adapt to these changes, we must make sure we support our junior team members in developing those skills that are really important to our clients—being able to appraise, interpret and analyse information.

Shaf Bheda, partner, Dow Schofield Watts

AI is raising clients’ expectations of accuracy and, through that, the volume of work. If a client expects a zero-error rate, it means you might review their top 20 contracts rather than their top five. I see this increasingly being the direction of travel.

However, I think that any competitive advantage given by AI is temporary. Five years ago, we were all using systems like Excel to give us insights, and with AI, we are starting to use similar tools to each other. What really makes the difference is still the individual. If you're sitting in front of a prospect, they're buying you and your experience rather than your tools. People will still fundamentally buy from people. These tools are great, but fundamentally, this is a people business, and what defines us is the people element.

Helen Brocklebank, regional managing partner, RSM

AI is playing a crucial role in business development – how we identify targets, track activity and share knowledge. The biggest initial impact is in targeting, where AI assists in handling junior-level tasks, allowing us to focus on more strategic activities. It's also acting as a training ground, allowing younger people to explore, play around and experiment with large language models.

In terms of data analysis, AI is allowing us to gain deeper insights both internally and for our client, helping them present their business for a deal. The impact, however, is not just at the point of transaction but also in the pre- and post-sale environment. It’s changing the level of what we can offer as advisors. With analysis tools, we can look at data in incredible detail – cut and dice it in multiple ways – and draw some impressive conclusions. It goes beyond helping us get the best value deal – it helps clients make their business better after the transaction. AI helps us reach conclusions we could never achieve by playing around with old-fashioned selling spreadsheets.

AI also allows us to build longer-term relationships as advisors. If, as part of a transaction, we've developed an operational dashboard with a client and we host it, then we are part of that business's operational systems – and that means a closer relationship. It's making us “sticky” advisors.

Andrew Cowan, partner, Gateley

We're seeing the initial impact of AI in administrative tasks. While we still rely on commercial solutions for contracts, we’re integrating AI into our processes: tools like Teams and Co-Pilot are useful for capturing and organising information efficiently, reducing the manual burden. This allows us to digest and share information within our teams more effectively, ensuring actions are captured and driving productivity.

There is a danger of more AI meaning more data going in, particularly on the legal side. In the past, we might have looked at a vendor’s top five contracts to save cost and de-scope the breadth of the process. Increasingly, the data we look through is growing, in the expectation that the machine will review it all.

It is important that dealmakers start developing their own AI systems and data – if only because we can't share clients’ private, confidential information on external systems. That’s also important because, if everyone else is using the same market-leading systems, internally developed ones, with tailored prompts, will be the way to differentiate yourself and add value.

Alistair Hammerton, partner, Shoosmiths

AI does bring improvements. For example, AI can scan five contracts for major issues such as change of control clauses and come up with results in five minutes - a huge benefit - and present the data in a nice user-friendly format. But it still needs the human to ask, “So, what do we do about this?”

We have to accept that our teams, particularly the younger ones, will use AI more, whether we like it or not. One of our responsibilities is to find the right ways to use it, the right prompts and the right safeguards. We're at a hybrid phase, where people supervising dealmaking are used to the old ways of working and check things off in the correct way. The challenge will be, as this evolves and we rely on it more and more for tasks like drafting and research, that we develop the proper safeguards.

It’s true that AI is also being used by clients to do initial work and come up with preconceived ideas of how a deal should look. However, they don't have the years of experience that they're paying us for, and we have a responsibility to educate them as to why those initial AI results might not be right. When it comes to legal assessments, AI doesn't go to the right sources; it doesn't do the checks and balances that human lawyers must do.

Emmet Keating, partner, Headpoint Advisors

There are already tools out there analysing private equity that provide predictions about when businesses are likely to undergo transactions. There are also CRM systems increasingly integrating with LinkedIn to track people's moves so, say, the CFO of a private equity-backed business in a sector you know moves, you can pick up the phone to them more quickly than other people can.

We're now using about 12 AI-powered tools. At the moment they give us marginal gains, in initial research stages, preparing for meetings, learning about businesses, their markets and competitors, and conducting buyer research to understand the key players in a sector. AI is not revolutionary but rather an evolution, simplifying the way we work and making the process more efficient. The identification of similar companies is also becoming faster.

The quality of AI’s output is getting better, but that does not take away our responsibility to check the accuracy and quality of the info it provides – our reputations depend on it. We need to bring experience to looking at the data and making calls: if AI says multiples for a deal in a sector are three times EBITDA, and another says it's 38 times, then both figures are probably wrong. We have to be robust in sense-checking and applying common sense. M&A is built on trust, which has to be established early, quickly and reinforced by human interaction. Trust is a human concept – about how that person perceives and believes the information they are getting. So while AI can help get to a position of trust, it needs a human player to build it.

Jeroen Kruithof, chief executive, Virtual Vaults

To get AI to work for you and your client properly, dealmakers need to come up with a vision, and this is the right moment because you can have people who transact the old way, with deep knowledge, alongside new people who are enthusiastic about AI.

What you really need to get a competitive advantage from AI is vision, and to be the best at using it. You need to write down a vision, create a playbook. Put your process on paper. Try all kinds of AI tools and other tools. Scope them so AI is aligned to your processes.then hire the right people - so that people who understand this technology are running the deals rather than the technology itself.

One of the biggest challenges to dealmakers is not so much the technology but the data. You could be using a great tool, but within two years, there's a competitor with better data on the same platform outcompeting you. You need to get all your information in a tech stack because you can always change the tool you're using to stay ahead. The retention of data also allows for longer-term relationships: you can see a client’s real numbers day-to-day, do some pretty good analytics and advise them, and even suggest their next deal.

A lot of the tools and information needed for using AI for better dealmaking are already here and on the market. The thing that often holds us back, though, is the client and how well organised they are. So many businesses have information that is a total mess - a mass of paperwork that’s wrong, unsigned, or not scanned in.

Joe Moran, managing partner, Marktlink

We’re seeing AI as an enabler that moves us along the deals curve. It creates a better starting point, taking us two or three steps further down the road than we might otherwise have started, and engaging with the client at a far more informed level. AI is powerful, but it is still a tool – a starting point.

AI is a massive enabler for clients' underlying businesses. We've all been in situations where entrepreneurs and owner-managed businesses don’t have their data ready, so the business isn’t marketable. AI will shift that so we can start talking about interesting things, rather than telling clients they can't sell their business yet because their financials are not in position.

Dealmakers still have to take responsibility for decisions – we can't just shift it all to technology – and that means a debate with the junior staff, giving them the benefit of our experience and educating them. The technology also reverses how we use and retain knowledge. A decade ago, you'd have a lot of thoughts in your brain but wouldn’t get it down on paper correctly. Now, so much information is on paper, or a screen, but not in our minds. It’s a reverse way of learning.

Jamie Partington, partner, Higgs

AI isn't just a buzzword anymore. It's here, and the possibilities are only limited by our imaginations. We now all have clients who ask early on, “How are you using AI?” They expect it to be used in some manner. And if you're not using it, why not?

AI tools do empower us, but they don't replace the human in the loop. Clients will always need a human to bring validity, common sense and experience, as opposed to just relying purely on AI results. Learning how to prompt effectively and review outputs is going to be a fundamental part of our skill sets from now on.

DMS (data management system) providers have a huge advantage here because we explicitly trust them with all our confidential data, as they have demonstrated compliance and security. If they build layers of AI on top of their products that support the process of dealmaking, it’s an open goal for all parties.

Geoff Perry, partner, Squire Patton Boggs

The rate of evolution of AI is staggering. When iPhones were introduced, it took about three and a half years to get to a million users. With ChatGPT, it took five days to get to a million users. DeepSeek reached 10 million in barely a week. The rate of evolution of systems and their usage is not exponential; it’s stratospheric - it's off the scale.

AI does bring benefits in many areas: document automation is fantastic and improving all the time; it helps with due diligence by doing searches through mass volumes of documents in data rooms, looking for change control clauses. However, it also poses real challenges, and in certain areas, lawyers should not be using it because we can't trust the answers. Some research in the US found AI results of legal research were only 42 per cent accurate. There are instances of AI just making up cases and citing laws that don't exist. AI over time will present new potential challenges, risks and costs. A business using something generated by AI that’s inaccurate or in breach of intellectual property rights faces real risks, which could lead to a new batch of warranties being demanded or price reductions to cover perceived risks.

Dealmaking is achieved through human interaction, which I don't think AI will ever replace. The machine may say a business is worth a 10 times multiple, but as humans, we may know that a buyer has a strategic imperative to acquire and is prepared to pay more, or that risk appetite means they may pay less. Dealmaking is not about data; it's about psychology and knowing which emotional buttons to press.

Geraint Regan, director, Breeze Corporate Finance

We're still in the very early stages of AI, but it's going to fundamentally change our workplace over the coming years. Unless people at all levels of firms embrace it, they are going to get left behind. The biggest saving AI offers currently is in time. For example, at the due diligence stage, it takes away hours of having to go through the data rooms. So, time spent on a transaction is far more productive.

Dealmaking will no longer be about having intelligent people with knowledge they've built up over the years. It's now about new skills such as prompting and reviewing AI’s output properly. It’s also about considering the biases and limitations of AI outputs. As well as employing people with a commercial mindset and training in areas like accountancy, increasingly our recruitment demands will include being tech-savvy. That's going to be the fundamental change because it’s a completely different skill set to traditional dealmaking.

Clients will always value real knowledge and first-hand experience because, however good tech is, that's what people employ us for. Particularly owner-managed businesses and family businesses going through a major transaction for the first time want first-hand experience.

Graham Spalding, corporate partner, Lodders

People have talked about AI in the legal sector for many years, but when you drill down, it wasn't AI at all. Now, it's clearly here.

There is a lot to be said for getting a first-mover pricing advantage with technological advancement. For a while, that gives you a distinction. However, everyone then gets it too, and then you're back to the normal rules about how you differentiate yourself from other people, and that’s by personality and experience.

A word of caution: law firms will use it a bit like a paralegal for a first round and review the output. My concern is that, over time, they'll start thinking, “It's pretty good, I'm a bit short of time,” and fire out documents unchecked. However, you - not the AI - are the author, and it’s on you to fact-check.

Harry Walker, partner, Dow Schofield Watts

AI does help us simplify and speed up processes. Instead of being initially lost and casting around for ideas, it allows for cut-through and getting straight into the task. In terms of competition, AI is a bit of a zero-sum game. We all use the same sorts of technology and gradually shift to a new paradigm of technology. In the long term, what matters - what creates differentiation - is the human element: things like client testimonials, understanding buying and selling behaviours, and building trust.

However, it does mean we need to rethink the training of younger staff. We learned by doing everything many, many times and gradually getting better at it. AI presents a challenge because it does so much of the basic work from which we learned. So we are going to have to think more about how we target training, learning and development.

I've seen examples where clients have produced an Information Memorandum using ChatGPT. It’s easy to spot, but there may soon come a point where AI improves and clients ask us, “Why should I pay you to do an IM or some other summary document in my business when I can just stick it into ChatGPT?”

While I am impressed by the language abilities of AI as a summary tool, its financial analysis is far more variable, and that is where dealmakers really add value.

Visit Virtual Vaults to learn more.

This article was originally published on Insider Media on 13th March 2025.