







A small-to-midsize financial services firm ran a dedicated technical AI diligence track alongside its standard M&A process, evaluating the target's AI architecture, model dependencies, training data provenance, and technical team composition. The diligence surfaced a key-person risk and AI capabilities that leaned on third-party vendor APIs rather than proprietary work. Those findings enabled the deal to be restructured with performance-based earnouts, reducing effective acquisition cost by 15–20%.
The work was an AI-specific technical due diligence and decision support assessment: a parallel workstream evaluating AI architecture, underlying model dependencies, training data provenance and ownership, and the concentration of the technical team behind the AI capabilities.
Diligence surfaced a key-person risk before close (a single engineer responsible for the core model) and led to the deal being restructured with performance-based earnouts tied to post-close milestones, avoiding a 15–20% valuation overpayment.
The engagement ran in the 2–4 month range.
PE firms and M&A advisors evaluating healthcare AI or AI-native acquisitions, and technical diligence providers building AI-specific assessment practices.