Insider Midlands AI Roundtable Interviews
Data and Artificial Intelligence are transforming mergers & acquisitions. Insider gathered together some of the Midlands’ top deals advisors, funders and lawyers are embracing the possibilities created by AI and digital.
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00:00Hi, I'm Kurt Jacobs, the editor of Midlands Business Insider, and I've just come away
00:15from a fascinating roundtable that we've held with our sponsor, Virtual Vaults, looking
00:21at the impact that AI is having on deal making, both here in the Midlands and across the country.
00:27It's been a discussion that's looked at how we scale up, how we invest, how we get the
00:32data sets, but also the real opportunities, such as how deals can be made faster, how
00:38you can get better value for companies, how companies need to prepare for what's coming.
00:43Anyway, here are the thoughts of some of our participants.
00:46Jeroen Keitel, CEO and founder of Virtual Vaults.
00:50We're scaling and enabling the mid-market advisors within corporate finance, legal industry,
00:57to scale their business, and so specifically, deal tech, for deal making.
01:02On what impact do you find that what you're doing is having on that mid-market?
01:08Actually, good deals and virtual data rooms, including AI, etc., is now in reach of these
01:15kinds of players within the mid-market, because normally, it's quite expensive, but people
01:19are resourced.
01:21Merit Wilson, founder, management partner at Headpoint.
01:24Oh, nice to meet you.
01:26So the question is, how are we using technology in our business?
01:31It's all about the client and making sure that we can do deals more efficiently, better,
01:37getting better value, more value for our clients, and we can use that technology in a number
01:43of different ways.
01:45I'm Sarah Taylor, a partner at Clearwater.
01:49Data and AI is starting to revolutionise how we think about putting processes together
01:57in terms of the base data, more wider sources that are coming through on availability, taking
02:03some of the grunt work out of the deal, but it'll never take the thinking away.
02:07Hi, Tom Joyne, a senior manager at PGAT, Smith Cooper.
02:10Some of the challenges, I think, with AI are probably where we draw the line, so there's
02:16lots of benefits, but actually, where do we get to in terms of, with so much data available,
02:21where do we draw the line on what's acceptable in terms of quantity of data shared, protections
02:27for consumers, and actually keeping confidential data confidential.
02:31Commercially sensitive data is commercial, it needs to be in a process.