For decades, firms responded to growing deal complexity by adding people. Datasite's latest global research suggests the next source of competitive advantage is different: redesigning how people and AI work together.

The new deal team: What 1,000 dealmakers reveal about AI-driven M&A, produced in collaboration with FT Longitude, finds that AI has moved beyond experimentation and is becoming embedded in the operating model of modern M&A. Nearly every senior dealmaker surveyed (96%) is already using or exploring AI for sourcing and screening opportunities, while 71% believe firms that fail to adopt AI will struggle to compete within five years. More than six in ten (62%) say relying solely on human decision-making is no longer sufficient for increasingly complex transactions.

The findings reflect a broader shift across industries. Deloitte's latest research on enterprise AI adoption suggests technological progress is outpacing organizational change, forcing leaders to rethink how work is structured and governed. McKinsey has similarly found that the greatest value from AI is increasingly realized not through deployment alone, but through redesigning workflows around it.

The same pattern is emerging in M&A. Competitive advantage is becoming less about access to AI and more about the ability to integrate it into decision-making and execution. The question is no longer whether firms should use AI. It is how they organize around it.

Competitive advantage is becoming a question of capacity

Every transaction is constrained by two scarce resources: time and experienced judgement. The survey suggests AI is changing how firms deploy both.

Nearly all respondents (96%) are already using or exploring AI for sourcing and screening opportunities, while half regularly use it during due diligence, the stage they identify as delivering the greatest return on investment today.

The rationale is straightforward. Screening targets, reviewing contracts, analyzing large volumes of documentation, and identifying potential risks are all activities where AI's ability to process information at scale can expand the capacity of deal teams.

What is striking, however, is that respondents do not simply view AI as a productivity tool. Nearly a quarter say AI has helped them identify and complete deals that otherwise would have been missed entirely, while two-thirds believe AI is a crucial way to reduce risk throughout the deal lifecycle.

The practical implication is significant. The research suggests firms are able to evaluate more opportunities, identify risks earlier, and move faster when the right asset appears. In competitive markets, that expanded capacity may prove as valuable as any individual technological capability.

The strongest AI strategies are built around trust

The research also highlights an important tension: as AI becomes more influential, trust becomes more important, not less.

Around one quarter of respondents believe poor use of AI will destroy high-value deals over the next five years. Security and compliance concerns remain among the biggest barriers to wider adoption, while dealmakers consistently rank accuracy and security above speed when assessing AI's value.

That helps explain why the most common approach to building trust is human validation. Nearly six in ten organizations review AI-generated outputs before acting on them, reinforcing a principle that emerged repeatedly throughout the study: AI can accelerate analysis, but accountability remains firmly human.

The findings suggest the organizations gaining the greatest advantage are not those pursuing automation at all costs. They are the firms building repeatable processes, governance frameworks, and decision-making disciplines around the technology.

The future belongs to hybrid teams

Perhaps the report's most important conclusion is that AI is not reducing the importance of people. It is concentrating their value.

As AI takes responsibility for increasingly process-driven and analytical work, dealmakers report spending more time where humans remain uniquely effective: building trust, understanding motivations, navigating negotiations, interpreting nuance, and exercising judgement when data alone cannot provide a definitive answer.

That balance is reflected in the survey. While respondents see AI playing an increasingly important role throughout the deal lifecycle, 45% believe the final decision to sign a deal should remain entirely human.

The emerging "new deal team" is therefore neither AI-led nor human-led. It is a combination of both. Machines increasingly provide speed, scale, and analytical power. Humans provide context, accountability, and conviction.

As AI becomes a standard capability across global M&A, the firms that outperform will be those that most effectively combine these strengths. The competitive gap is likely to depend less on access to AI itself than on how successfully organizations redesign the way people, processes, and technology work together.

AI automates. Humans elevate.

Explore the full findings in The new deal team: What 1,000 dealmakers reveal about AI-driven M&A.