Human judgement remains critical as tech transforms M&A: key takeaways from Eversheds Sutherland’s 2026 Global M&A Conference

M&A industry leaders met at Eversheds Sutherland’s 2026 Global M&A Conference at Glaziers Hall in London on Thursday, October 14, 2026. Top of the agenda: the transformative impact of AI across the dealmaking process, with speakers envisioning rising deal volumes, greater complexity and new priorities for M&A professionals in the years to come. This keystone event followed the recent launch of Eversheds Sutherland’s new report This is the new M&A: Technology and the new deal logic.

Today’s use of glass goes far beyond anything the original glass artists of Glaziers Hall could have imagined, making this an apt venue to host leaders from another long-established market that is at a moment of fundamental change.

In his opening address, Partner and International Head of Corporate at Eversheds Sutherland Antony Walsh set an optimistic tone for the M&A industry. Significant growth is on the horizon, he told the conference, with tech-enabled deal democratisation growing the addressable market for dealmakers, while automation and AI are accelerating deal processes, from deal origination through to integration.

As tech becomes omnipresent, the market will also face growing complexity, new data demands and greater security and regulatory concerns. The key to adapting to the emerging risks, Walsh concluded, will be the human factor: trust, relationships and expertise.

AI in M&A: The state of play

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer and current Head of OpenAI for Countries George Osborne kicked off with a keynote session which laid out the broad economic and political conditions for AI adoption.

At a time when change is the only constant, it’s vital for existing organisations to be able to think like challengers, he said. While it can be hard to predict what the future will look like, Osborne called for “confidence and optimism” from the audience of M&A players.

The following expert panels made one thing clear: AI has become a central consideration in all deals, no longer just in the tech sector.

In particular, it is accelerating early-stage deal processes. Carl von Baumbach, Principal at Warburg Pincus, noted that the pace of target research, screening and due diligence has increased, with AI tools enabling much larger volumes of information to be processed at speed.

Faster, more efficient processes are lowering barriers to entry for M&A, including opening up cross-border opportunities to more players, driving the growth of deal volumes.

Scale, growth and resilience have also become increasingly important drivers of demand for M&A, the conference heard: in rapidly changing markets, businesses are motivated to bring in new competitive and defensive capabilities.

New key considerations

As well as driving new demand and opportunity, tech is also raising new questions in M&A. Buyers are increasingly concerned with whether the businesses they are acquiring can withstand AI-driven disruption, and whether their data, tech and market position represents sustainable value. For von Baumbach, AI resiliency is a binary risk, which has therefore been the due diligence priority number one - are businesses AI beneficiaries or losers?

By lowering the barriers to building new products and services, AI is also leading investors to reconsider the relative benefits of acquiring capabilities versus developing them in-house, according to Kashif Aslam, Head of Corporate Development, UK and Ireland, at Experian. It is raising the bar for what counts as a competitive edge.

At the same time, as tech increases in importance, security concerns become more salient. As Rod Lai, Partner in Hong Kong at Eversheds Sutherland, observed, issues like data protection, intellectual property, cybersecurity, foreign investment screening and national security have gone from peripheral to front-of-mind in recent years, especially given the increase in cross-border deals.

M&A players are also seeing increasing expectations around data disclosure, and anticipating possible regulatory demand for live commercial data and enhanced post-merger monitoring.

The human factor

While technology can automate document review and information analysis, and AI can identify patterns and generate insights, speakers across the board agreed that these tools can’t replicate the human judgment, trust and relationships their work is founded on.

As Chris Rosselli, Partner in the US at Eversheds Sutherland, put it: deal governance will be crucial for ensuring that AI tools are used for the overall good of the deal process.
In fact, in a market of increasingly complex negotiations and new demand for bespoke deal terms, the ability of advisors to understand their clients is more important than ever, Christine Olmsted, Managing Director of Corporate Development at Synechron, told the conference. 

And with automated systems outputting huge amounts of analysis, critical thinking will be vital to distinguish meaningful findings from the noise. 

Speakers agreed that while the role of M&A professionals may move away from traditional, manual processes for individual transactions, the increasing volume and changing nature of deals will place greater emphasis on their specialist skills.

The new M&A: The outlook

Eversheds Sutherland’s 2026 M&A conference revealed a market that is positive, constructive and forward-looking on tech and AI. 

Building on the findings of the This is the new M&A report, speakers and attendees alike observed that AI is on course to create a new landscape of opportunities and accelerate deal processes.

At the same time, the industry is alive to the increasing need for sound investment decisions, effective governance, trust, and human judgment as M&A is transformed.

The resounding message: AI is not a zero-sum game. Its ability to increase efficiencies and broaden the market will create new opportunities for M&A professionals, who will find that their human perspective and expertise is an increasingly crucial differentiating factor.