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…
Insider drew together some leaders in dealmaking to its Birmingham office to discuss the issues in a round table sponsored by Virtual Vaults to see how we get the best, and avoid the worst of AI in M&A. We looked at the challenges AI brings in terms of accuracy, reliability and credibility; the new skills are needed to make the best of the technology; how quickly it's developing; and the strategies to get the most out of AI, for both dealmakers and their clients.
Insider drew together some leaders in dealmaking to its Birmingham office to discuss the issues in a round table sponsored by Virtual Vaults to see how we get the best, and avoid the worst of AI in M&A. We looked at the challenges AI brings in terms of accuracy, reliability and credibility; the new skills are needed to make the best of the technology; how quickly it's developing; and the strategies to get the most out of AI, for both dealmakers and their clients.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Kurt Jacobs, the editor of Midlands Business Insider, and we've just done a round
00:15table where I brought together a dozen of leading dealmakers from across the Midlands
00:19to look at the impact that artificial intelligence and data are having on mergers and acquisitions.
00:26It's been a fascinating discussion. We've looked at the issues such as the immediate
00:30benefits that AI is going to bring, the benefits it's going to bring to customers and clients
00:36like you, and also how the sector needs to skill up to really get the best out of this
00:42technology. Let's speak to some of the participants.
00:46My name is Jeroen Krijthof, CEO and founder of Virtual Vaults. We just had a remarkable
00:50round table session about dealmaking in the future, and it's all about vision, using the
00:55right tools, combine it with the right virtual data rooms, and you take it from there. Look
00:59at your processes, do a little scoping, and then a proof of concept.
01:05Hi, I'm Geraint Regan. I'm from Breeze Corporate Finance. When it comes to technology, and
01:10in particular AI, we are seeing some effect of that in M&A transactions to date, but I
01:15think over the next few years, it's going to have a huge impact on the whole M&A industry,
01:20whether it be from sourcing deals to actually executing deals, and I think particularly
01:25in terms of taking things to that next stage in terms of that predictive analytics and
01:30working through things such as integration and execution, etc.
01:34I'm Amanda Betts. I'm from ProVantage Corporate Finance, and the impact on the AI is having
01:39on dealmaking is giving us access to a wider range of buyers for our clients in a more
01:45efficient way.
01:47Emmett Keating from Headpoint Advisors. I think that we see a lot of impact of AI and
01:52digital tech stack on making our deals more efficient lately. We're continually evaluating
01:59the tools we use, and I think we see quite a lot of improvement in the initial phases.
02:04The market research, the market mapping, the identifying of comparable deals is all super
02:09quick, and getting our team up to speed on that has been a real benefit in recent years.
02:16Harry Walker from DiveScope of Watts. I think the biggest impact we're seeing from digital
02:21technology on dealmaking at the moment is around AI, in particular around research,
02:27buyers, and market mapping. The best thing we've found is actually for international
02:32buyers. AI can cut through international languages in a way that we can't as conventional
02:38researchers, so that's where we're seeing the most help at the moment.