M&A total deal value soars

There are too many letters to count. You’ve heard about the K-shaped economy and the bifurcated consumer. Now, we’ve got an increasingly bifurcated…M&A market. Call it K-shaped M&A?

The M&A landscape in 2026 thus far has been something of a paradox: Deal value skyrocketed while deal volume dipped, according to PwC’s midyear deals outlook, released June 17.

As PwC’s US deals platform leader Kevin Desai put it, in a talk with reporters: “So overall deal volume is down about 5%, while megadeals continue to go through the roof.”

M&A deal value in the US climbed to $1.2 trillion in the first five months of the year, almost double the $603 billion in value seen in the same period in 2025, according to the firm. But this year’s 4,653 deals fell short of last year’s 4,851 over the same timeframe.

One easy explanation for the change? Megadeals. In the first five months of 2026, there were 39 announced transactions valued at $5 billion or more, a more than 50% increase from the same period last year. The value of megadeals almost tripled, climbing to $957 billion from $325 billion in the first five months of 2025.

Still, there’s bifurcation at work. “Even on the megadeal side, there are two deals that make up almost 40% of the megadeals’ value,” Desai said, adding that the overall dynamic isn’t totally K-shaped. “It’s more like a tree than a K at this point because there are so many branches of what’s going and what’s not going.”

AI ecosystem. AI megadeals are still going through: Approximately a quarter of megadeals in the past two years were AI-motivated or “tied to the broader AI ecosystem” like building data centers, per PwC.

Bifurcation reared its head again, though. Market activity with respect to AI dealmaking is “very busy but wildly uneven,” Alex Baker, PwC’s technology, media, and telecommunications deal leader, said.

“The pace of technology change right now is staggering,” Baker said. “The same news can blow up one company’s business model and be literal rocket fuel for another’s.”

In its report, PwC cautioned that “two years into the AI-driven megadeal cycle, acquirable AI-native targets may be increasingly scarce…Companies that need AI capabilities are increasingly turning to greenfield investment—funding new data center builds, for example—and strategic partnerships rather than outright acquisitions.” As a result, dealmakers “may need to pursue smaller targets or develop capabilities organically.”

Macro proof. There’s a “defining characteristic” of deals that are going through in 2026: They’re macro resilient.

“The strongest transactions in 2026 are not dependent on interest rate cuts, GDP growth, or trade policy resolution,” PwC noted in its outlook. “They have a clear strategic fit that makes the deal thesis resilient across a range of macroeconomic scenarios.”

These “macro-insensitive” deals come from “CEOs having confidence behind secular tailwinds in their business or the strategic and compelling need to redefine their business and realign the portfolios to drive growth,” Desai said. “When you look at it, 89% of buyers and CEOs are now chasing revenue-growth-orientated deals, and that is up from the mid-60s about five years ago.”

If there’s a single factor that could accelerate dealmaking in the latter half of 2026, it’s clarity in the geopolitical environment, Desai said. That “will have a knock-on impact on what’s going to happen to yields,” he said. “And if high yield—long-dated Treasury yields are dropping, then we’ll be in for kind of a nice roller coaster for the second half of the year.”