Litera, a global leader in legal technology solutions, in association with the Technology in M&A Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s M&A Committee, has released new data revealing UK firms currently use AI-based technologies to complete around half (49%) of their merger & acquisition (M&A) engagements and 61% at firms where M&A is the majority of their work.
As part of Litera’s new survey, M&A in the AI Era: Future Trends in Deal-Making Tech, the data reveals law firm leaders are navigating an increasingly competitive landscape for deal-making amid a slowdown in global M&A activity.
Eight in 10 (80%) UK law firms indicate that AI is highly important for their overall M&A practice. With legal professionals seeing a 27%improvement in the realisation rates for their M&A deals from the use of technology, it reiterates why the vast majority (81%) have plans to make use of Generative AI solutions for their M&A practice in the next one or two yeara and the reason 94% anticipate that the majority of M&A engagements in the legal industry will be completed using AI-based technologies within the next 10 years.
Seven in 10 legal professionals in the UK report that clients proactively ask their firm about using specific AI technologies or products in their M&A due diligence projects regularly, compared to around half of those in Canada (51%) and the US (55%). Despite the potential AI offers, firms globally recognise that not all clients are comfortable with it just yet, and they’re tailoring their pitches to prospective clients based on their perceived comfort with AI.
