Would You Let AI Buy a Company? Most Dealmakers Say No

Artificial intelligence has moved from experimentation to infrastructure in M&A. Dealmakers are increasingly relying on AI to source opportunities, analyze targets, and identify risks, but when it comes time to sign a deal, they still want a human holding the pen.

That tension sits at the center of The New Deal Team, a new report from Datasite and FT Longitude based on a March 2026 survey of 1,000 senior dealmakers across 27 countries. All respondents had lead decision-making responsibility on at least three transactions during the previous 24 months. Participants included professionals from private equity, corporate development, law, accounting, and advisory firms across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions. While 62% of respondents believe human-only decision-making is no longer defensible in complex transactions, 45% say the decision to proceed to signing should always remain exclusively human.

The survey shows AI is most deeply embedded in the most data-intensive phases of dealmaking. Due diligence leads adoption, with 50% of respondents reporting regular or fully embedded use and only 4% reporting no use at all. Sourcing and screening follow, with 43% reporting regular or embedded use and 96% either using or exploring AI in some capacity. Strategy and ideation, deal marketing, and deal preparation also showed meaningful adoption as firms increasingly use AI to accelerate analysis and workflow management.

As AI takes on more of the heavy lifting in M&A, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less.

Yet adoption drops sharply as transactions move toward closing. Thirty-one percent of respondents report no AI use at closing, and only 16% use it heavily. Board reporting and governance show similar patterns, with 27% reporting no AI use at all. When asked where responsibility should reside for proceeding to signing, 45% said the decision should be made entirely by humans, while another 33% favored a human decision informed by AI. Just 7% said they would proceed based on an AI recommendation without human review.

“AI can automate analysis, but it can’t own accountability,” said Rusty Wiley, president and CEO of Datasite. “As AI takes on more of the heavy lifting in M&A, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less. The firms that outperform will be those that combine the speed and scale of AI with the trust, experience and oversight that only people can provide.”

The data also indicates that advisors are moving faster than corporate acquirers and financial sponsors in embedding AI into transaction workflows. The largest gap appears in due diligence, where 53% of advisors report regular or fully embedded AI use compared with 45% of clients. If that trend continues, AI capabilities could increasingly become a source of differentiation among investment banks, accounting firms, consultants, and legal advisors competing for transaction mandates.

AI is becoming indispensable in dealmaking and investing, but adoption alone isn’t the advantage.

The findings also suggest AI is influencing transaction outcomes rather than simply improving efficiency. Twenty-four percent of respondents said AI helped them complete a transaction that otherwise would have been missed, while 43% said AI is already making better deal decisions than humans in certain situations. Two-thirds of respondents believe using AI across the deal lifecycle is an effective way to reduce transaction risk.

The impact is beginning to extend beyond deal execution and into firm operations. Twenty-six percent of respondents said they had delayed or canceled hiring for a role because AI could perform the work as effectively. Nearly half of respondents said they would accept AI input in dealmaking if it was 80% as accurate as a human, and 71% believe firms that fail to adopt AI today will struggle to compete within five years.

“AI is becoming indispensable in dealmaking and investing, but adoption alone isn’t the advantage,” said Raj Bakhru, general manager of Blueflame AI, a provider of AI-powered workflow and research tools for private equity and investment banking professionals that was acquired by Datasite in 2025. “The real challenge is ensuring AI outputs are accurate, secure and trusted. Strong governance, transparent workflows and human oversight are what determine whether AI creates value or introduces risk.”

The survey’s governance findings reinforce that view. Accuracy and security ranked as the two most important attributes dealmakers require from AI tools, cited by 71% and 70% of respondents, respectively. Human review and validation were identified as the leading mechanism for building trust in AI-generated outputs, followed by the use of purpose-built applications and deployment within secure environments.

As firms increasingly incorporate AI into sourcing, diligence, portfolio monitoring, and reporting processes, questions surrounding oversight, accountability, and fiduciary responsibility are moving beyond IT departments and into investment committees and boardrooms. Security and compliance concerns remain the largest barriers to broader adoption, cited by 44% of respondents, while 35% pointed to a lack of internal expertise.

The report ultimately suggests that AI is changing the nature of dealmaking rather than replacing dealmakers.

Regional differences were pronounced. Asia-Pacific respondents reported the highest levels of AI adoption across most phases of the deal process and were generally the most willing to delegate decision-making authority to AI. Europe, Middle East, and Africa respondents were the most cautious, particularly around security and regulatory concerns. Dealmakers in the Americas were the most concerned about competitive pressure, with 74% saying firms that fail to embrace AI today will struggle to compete within five years.

Looking toward 2030, respondents expect AI’s benefits to vary by stage of the deal process. In due diligence, the most commonly cited benefit is improved identification and mitigation of risks. In sourcing and screening, dealmakers expect AI to help manage a greater volume of opportunities. In strategy and ideation, respondents anticipate better decision-making, while users expect AI to improve board reporting and governance through faster access to more accurate information and insights.

The report ultimately suggests that AI is changing the nature of dealmaking rather than replacing dealmakers. As technology assumes more responsibility for sourcing, diligence, and transaction preparation, the skills that remain uniquely human—negotiation, relationship management, strategic judgment, assessing trust and intent, and accountability—become increasingly valuable.

For private equity firms, the more interesting question may no longer be whether AI will become part of the investment process, but how quickly AI proficiency becomes a baseline expectation. Virtual data rooms, CRM systems, and digital diligence tools were once differentiators before becoming standard infrastructure. The survey suggests AI may be following the same path, with the competitive advantage shifting from access to the technology to how effectively firms integrate it into their investment processes.

Minneapolis-headquartered Datasite, led by President and CEO Rusty Wiley, provides software used to manage information flow across private market transactions. Its product portfolio includes virtual data rooms, deal-sourcing platform Grata, agentic AI platform Blueflame AI, and governance software provider Sherpany.

The survey was conducted by FT Longitude, the research and thought leadership division of the Financial Times Group, on behalf of Datasite in March 2026.

Click HERE to download a copy of Datasite’s The New Deal Team.