A book on autonomous AI and the deal process
Mergers and acquisitions is a process industry. Sourcing, diligence, valuation, negotiation and integration are each a sequence of human judgements applied to large volumes of information under time pressure — which is precisely the shape of work that autonomous AI agents change most.
The argument
The book distinguishes agentic AI from conventional automation and from generative AI. The difference is that an agent pursues a goal across multiple steps, invokes tools, and adapts to what it finds — rather than completing a single prompted task.
It then works through the deal lifecycle stage by stage, asking three questions at each one: what actually changes, what does not, and where the professional judgement remains irreducible.
The regulatory chapter is the one most readers underestimate. Autonomous decision-making inside a regulated transaction process raises questions of accountability, disclosure and record-keeping that the technology has moved faster than the rules have.
Case studies are drawn from cybersecurity and enterprise technology — the sectors where both the deal volume and the AI adoption are furthest along.
Inside the book
| Stage | What agentic AI changes | The residual human question |
|---|---|---|
| Deal sourcing | Continuous screening against a live thesis rather than periodic banker lists; signal monitoring at a scale no team can staff | Which signals actually predict a willing seller |
| Due diligence | Autonomous document review, contract analysis, anomaly surfacing across data rooms | What the absence of a document means |
| Valuation | Real-time modelling; comparable sets rebuilt as the market moves | Which comparables are genuinely comparable |
| Negotiation & structuring | Scenario generation, term modelling, precedent retrieval | Reading the counterparty |
| Post-merger integration | Synergy tracking, systems mapping, milestone monitoring | Whether the two cultures can hold |
| Governance | Audit trails, decision logs, model oversight | Who is accountable when an agent is wrong |
Readership
Corporate-development leaders, investment bankers, private-equity and venture professionals, M&A attorneys, management consultants, and executives responsible for inorganic growth.
The book is written for practitioners who will deploy this, not for observers. The framework is intended to be applied to an actual acquisition programme or a buy-and-build — not admired from a distance.
Author
Managing Partner of El Dorado Capital, a corporate development advisory firm working exclusively in cybersecurity, and co-founder of CorpDev.ai.
He has led more than 30 acquisitions representing over $3 billion in aggregate deal value. The Agentic Edge is written from that side of the table: the argument is about what an acquisition programme actually does day to day, and which parts of it an agent can now carry.
Companion work
The Business of Cyber Security explains how AI is re-pricing the security industry's categories and consolidating its vendors. The Agentic Edge explains how AI is re-pricing the transaction process by which that consolidation happens.
How Value Is Created, Destroyed, and Captured in the Cyber Economy.
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