Crowds walk through Midtown Manhattan on October 16, 2025 in New York City.
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Annual global M&A deal value is expected to reach $4 trillion in 2026, the strongest year since 2021, thanks to large deals as demand for AI continues to rise, according to a PwC report.
More than $5 billion in M&A deals have contributed to nearly half of the total global deals so far this year, according to PwC. If the current pace continues, we expect the value of megadeals to increase by 40% in 2026 compared to the previous year.
“2026 is the year that M&A goes big,” said Brian Levy, global deals industry leader at PwC US, adding that AI is driving mega deals, redirecting capital and shuffling winners and losers in the sector.
“AI is intensifying the K-type M&A market, forcing dealmakers to fundamentally rethink how they conduct deals,” Levy added.
Hurdles will remain for mid-market dealmakers. “Many middle-market dealmakers remain constrained by geopolitical uncertainty, valuation disparities, slowing growth, rising inflation and interest rates, and persistently high private equity exit volumes,” PwC said.
If global M&A value reaches $4 trillion by the end of 2026, it will increase by at least 13% year-on-year from 2025. According to PwC, this is the second-largest annual transaction volume since 2021, when transaction value exceeded $5 trillion. According to PwC data, deals over $5 billion currently account for 48% of global transaction value, rising to 39% by 2025 and 26% by 2024.
Some of this year’s biggest M&A deals involved AI, such as the acquisitions announced by SpaceX and Salesforce last month.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has signed a definitive agreement to acquire artificial intelligence startup Cursor for $60 billion. human And OpenAI.
sales forceSoftware-as-a-service company is acquiring AI customer service platform Fin for $3.6 billion to power its agent services, addressing concerns that new AI tools will make its business model obsolete.
Meanwhile, technology giants Qualcomm The company is in talks to buy Modular, an AI chip company that could be valued at about $4 billion, according to Bloomberg.
“Over time, AI has the potential to increase liquidity in private markets by making it easier to value and trade assets,” PwC said, adding that the trading process will revolve around both AI insights and human judgment.
“That’s where trust resides.”
—CNBC’s Ashley Caputo and Samantha Subin contributed to this article.
