M&A and due diligence in the age of AI: how agentic search reshapes strategic audits
How autonomous research tools reshape the exploitation of target data and the detection of legal risks during diligence.
Data rooms have never been so voluminous, and deadlines never so tight. Agentic search — capable of autonomously exploring, cross-referencing and prioritising thousands of documents — profoundly changes how M&A teams conduct diligence, compressing the inventory phase in favour of analysis.
The gain is not only productivity
The gain is not only productivity: it makes visible risks that manual review would miss. Scattered change-of-control clauses, off-balance-sheet commitments buried in appendices, latent litigation surfaced by cross-referencing correspondence and audit reports.
The gain is not only productivity: it makes visible risks that manual review would miss.
In return, these tools create a new
In return, these tools create a new responsibility for acquirers: what the agent should have found is deemed known. Reps and warranties must reflect this asymmetry, and the traceability of agentic queries becomes a diligence deliverable.
Key takeaways
- 01Agentic search — capable of autonomously exploring, cross-referencing and prioritising thousands of documents — profoundly changes how M&A teams conduct diligence, compressing the inventory phase in favour of analysis.
- 02Scattered change-of-control clauses, off-balance-sheet commitments buried in appendices, latent litigation surfaced by cross-referencing correspondence and audit reports.
- 03Reps and warranties must reflect this asymmetry, and the traceability of agentic queries becomes a diligence deliverable.
Published on
3 June 2026
Section
M&A
Rackham Limited
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