Dealmaking activity in this space has grown immensely over the past decade and that boom has really picked up steam in recent years. From 2020 to 2022, the volume of M&A transactions more than doubled. In the following years, the AI market continued to post steady growth. Dealmaking activity rose by about 21% in 2024 on an annual basis.

And the first half of 2025 kept up with the trend as we saw 806 deals, 25% more than for the same period last year. PE companies accounted for the buyer in about 20% of all transactions, although both strategic and financial buyers are continuing to actively pursue AI-enabled technology companies, fueling market growth.

In the first half of 2025, buyers preferred to keep their M&A strategies private as only 15% of transactions disclosed their financial terms, keeping with historical trends. Total disclosed M&A deal value reached $55.5 billion, aided by 7 megadeals reported in the first quarter and 9 in the second quarter.

Over the past few years, VC funding in AI companies has been incredibly volatile as have deal volumes. The turbulent landscape for VC funding has encouraged companies to instead pursue M&A strategies for growth and liquidity.

In the first half of 2025, private equity firm Thoma Bravo became the most active buyer, making 7 acquisitions in the AI space. It was followed closely by another investor – TA Associates, which made 5 acquisitions. Other notable buyers include strategics such as Nixxy, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Publicis Groupe, NVIDIA, IBM, Databricks and Atombit, as well as private equity companies – HgCapital, New Mountain Capital and EQT.