The AI blind spot in M&A

According the KPMG 2025 Technology M&A Survey, only 33% of dealmakers prioritize investigating technical and AI debt during pre-deal evaluation, even though 66% discuss it during deal planning.

That gap is the AI blind spot. And it's showing up in valuations, post-close surprises, and missed value creation.

Traditional product and tech diligence was built for the SaaS world. Applied to today's AI-shaped targets, it evaluates the wrong signals — leaving buyers with an incomplete picture at the moment it matters most.

This paper outlines what AI-aware diligence looks like in practice: the seven dimensions that require a fundamentally different set of questions, the framework that enables consistent analysis at deal speed, and the advantages investors gain when they close the gap.