Global M&A deal value on track to reach $4 trillion this year: PwC
Crowds march through downtown Manhattan on October 16, 2025 in New York City.
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The annual global deal value of mergers and acquisitions is on track to reach $4 trillion in 2026, according to a PwC report, which would be the strongest year since 2021 thanks to larger mega-deals fueled by the ongoing surge in AI demand.
PwC said M&A transactions worth more than $5 billion have contributed to almost half of the total global deal value so far this year. If the current pace continues, a 40% annual increase in deal values from mega deals is expected in 2026.
Brian Levy said, “2026 is the year when mergers and acquisitions reach massive dimensions”, Global deals industry leader at PwC US added that AI is encouraging big deals, redirecting capital and mixing industry winners and losers.
“AI is intensifying the K-shaped M&A market and forcing dealmakers to radically rethink how deals are made,” Levy added.
Obstacles for deal makers in the middle market will likely remain. “Most middle market deal makers continue to be constrained by geopolitical uncertainty, valuation gaps, slowing growth, high inflation and interest rates, and the backlog of private capital outflows that remains stubbornly high,” PwC said.
If the global M&A value reaches $4 trillion by the end of 2026, there will be an annual increase of at least 13% compared to 2025. This would represent the second largest annual deal value since 2021, when deals surpassed $5 trillion, according to PwC. Transactions over $5 billion now account for 48% of global deal value, compared to 39% in 2025 and 26% in 2024, according to data from PwC.
Some of the biggest M&A deals this year involved artificial intelligence, including the acquisitions announced by SpaceX and Salesforce last month.
SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, signed a formal agreement to acquire artificial intelligence startup Cursor for $60 billion; this may increase its efforts to compete with its peers anthropic and OpenAI.
sales forcea software-as-a-service company, is buying AI customer service platform Fin for $3.6 billion to boost its brokerage offering as it grapples with concerns that new AI tools will render its business model obsolete.
Meanwhile, the technology giant Qualcomm It is in talks to acquire Modular, a move that would value the AI chip firm at around $4 billion. Bloomberg.
“Over time, AI could make private markets more liquid by making it easier to value and trade assets,” PwC said, adding that the deal process will revolve around both AI-powered insight and human judgment.
“This is where the trust will sit.”
—CNBC’s Ashley Capoot And Samantha Subin contributed to the story.
