See It Work — Why M&A takes too long, costs too much — and still fails | Book 11 · AI Agents for M&A

A typical due-diligence process drags 60-90 days, makes a deal team read 10,000-50,000 documents, and runs $1M-$20M in fees for a mid-market deal. And after all of it, 50-70% of acquisitions still fail to deliver their projected synergies — usually because the diligence missed something. The fix isn't more people reading faster.

The expense and the time aren't even the worst part — it's that deals still fail because something got missed in a haystack no human could fully read. The new division of labor: the agent reads everything; the human interprets what matters.

What this means for you

The agent reads everything and surfaces what matters; the human interprets and decides. What this means for you: you stop losing deals to a missed detail in a haystack — the agent covers the whole document set so nothing slips, and you spend your judgment on what actually drives the deal.

The cost of the old way is the case for the new division of labor:

The M&A Problem

due diligence60-90 days

documents reviewed10,000-50,000

advisory fees$1M-$20M

deals that miss synergies50-70%

The agent reads everything; the human interprets what matters — that division of labor changes deal outcomes.

For the technical reader — the command, and how to verify it yourself

# one line · you do not need to run this
see walkthrough

see walkthrough
# -> the cost of traditional M&A and the better division of labor

Full step-by-step is in Appendix RX: Hands-On Demonstrations in the book.