Julien Villemonteix is the CEO of UpSlide, a software company that creates documents for investment banking and financial advisory firms.
If 2025 is the year investment banking M&A makes a comeback, which banks will dominate deal-making in the market?
Following several years during which higher central bank base rates and macroeconomic uncertainty have dampened economic sentiment, optimism is returning and M&A activity is expected to increase. For many investment banks, the focus will now be on being first in line to advise on and underwrite the best deals.
As any deal team knows, this means responding efficiently to requests for proposals (RFPs); creating compelling, brand-compliant pitchbooks and documents; and streamlining due diligence—often with fewer resources. Emerging technologies like AI and automation have the potential to help deal teams find efficiencies in delivering against all these activities. As investment banks gear up for increased deal volumes, I believe tech will be a key differentiator.
Shaping an innovation strategy that supports deal-making isn’t always easy, however, and a wide range of competing opinions exist about the best approach.
Innovation And Software Investments To Make The Sector Fit For The Future
To take the pulse of this conversation, we recently surveyed more than 300 investment bankers and operational leaders across several key markets. The research found that 92% of those surveyed recognized that “a large portion of junior bankers’ time is wasted on repetitive, manual or ‘low-value’ tasks, which is draining productivity.”
Almost half of bankers and operational leaders in investment banking identified data entry and management as being one of the biggest drains on operational efficiency (42%), along with financial modeling (43%) and pitchbook preparation and editing (25%). When asked about potential solutions to this productivity gap, 85% agreed that technology must be the answer, with half of those surveyed believing that “greater investment in technology is the best protection against future fluctuations in market demand.”
Racing Against The Clock
2023 was, according to McKinsey, generative AI’s break-out year, with a third of respondents to their annual global survey saying they use GenAI regularly within a business function. That number rose to 65% in 2024, and the emergence of DeepSeek at the start of 2025 indicates that the pace of AI-driven change is unlikely to slow.
The pace of change and growing competition in M&A likely means that investment bank leaders won’t have as long to consider innovation strategies as they might otherwise have liked. With evidence suggesting that deal teams have been shrinking, too, technology may also be key to increasing the productive capacity of smaller teams. Automating routine tasks such as refreshing hundreds of data points and formatting tables within a pitchbook can allow teams to do more with less immediately.
Done right, automation and similar technologies can give investment banks a first-mover advantage in the M&A market and can also help level the playing field between larger firms and smaller boutiques. With bigger banks also competing to acquire smaller competitors as a way to expand into new market segments, technology will be important for smaller firms and teams looking to remain competitive.
Conclusion
As investment banks gear up for a growing volume of M&A, they face a novel challenge that goes beyond the usual economic cycle. Recent years have seen the explosive growth of AI and automation—technologies that have the potential to change market dynamics in all industries, with finance being no exception.
I believe tech procurement is going to become a key strategic concern for investment banks as they look to manage this change. These technologies mean that market position can no longer be guaranteed, and smaller firms making smart tech investments could make serious inroads against larger firms making the wrong investments.
For both bankers and operational leaders, I recommend ensuring decisions on tech investment and automation are made holistically. As the race to gain the upper hand in the coming wave of M&A intensifies, those firms that leverage tech wisely stand to gain the most.
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