CVC Sold Skroutz Without Bankers, Using AI Instead — Here's What Happened

Skroutz, founded in 2005, has evolved from a price-comparison website into Greece's leading e-commerce platform, listing more than 12 million products from approximately 9,000 merchants and serving about 2.5 million active users .

The Bigger Picture: AI Has Become M&A Infrastructure

The Skroutz deal is not an isolated experiment. A wave of major surveys published in 2025–2026 shows AI has moved from the experimental fringe to essential infrastructure in dealmaking.

Datasite/FT Longitude survey (July 2026) — 1,000 senior dealmakers across 27 countries:

• 96% of dealmakers are using or exploring AI for sourcing and screening opportunities .
• 50% have AI regularly embedded in due diligence, the stage delivering the highest reported ROI .
• 62% say human-only decision-making is no longer defensible in complex transactions .
• 71% believe firms that ignore AI today will struggle to compete within five years .
• 43% say AI is already making better deal decisions than humans in some scenarios .
• 24% say AI helped them complete a deal they otherwise would have missed .
• 66% believe AI helps de-risk transactions across the deal lifecycle .

Bain & Company 2026 Global M&A Report:

• Adoption of AI tools more than doubled in 2025, with 45% of M&A executives now relying on the technology for tangible use cases across the deal lifecycle .
• AI-fueled dealmaking drove the rebound in Tech M&A; nearly half of strategic technology deal value for deals over $500M involved AI-native targets or cited AI benefits .

Deloitte 2025 M&A Generative AI Study (1,000 corporate and PE leaders):

• 86% of corporate and private equity leaders now use generative AI in dealmaking .
• Most expect AI to substantially improve capabilities in target screening, due diligence, and post-merger integration .

PwC 2026 Mid-Year M&A Outlook:

• AI is "upending how deals get done," accelerating diligence, valuation, and investment committee preparation — though human judgment still matters .
• Global M&A value is on track to reach approximately $4 trillion in 2026, up 13% from 2025 .

Accuracy and Security Are the Defining Challenges

As AI adoption accelerates, the Datasite survey identifies trust as the central issue:

• Accuracy (71%) and security (70%) rank as the two most important requirements for AI in dealmaking .
• 58% of respondents rely on human review and validation to build confidence in AI-generated outputs .
• Nearly half (45%) say the final decision to sign a deal should always remain a human responsibility .
• 24% believe poor use of AI could jeopardize major deals over the next five years .

Raj Bakhru, General Manager of Blueflame AI (Datasite's AI arm), noted: "The real challenge is ensuring AI outputs are accurate, secure and trusted. Strong governance, transparent workflows and human oversight are what determine whether AI creates value or introduces risk."

Where AI Still Falls Short: What Dealmakers Say It Cannot Yet Do

Across all the surveys, a clear consensus emerges on AI's current limitations:

Attributes respondents say AI struggles most to replicate:

• Negotiation and relationship management
• Strategic judgment and prioritization
• Assessing trust, intent, and credibility of counterparties
• Making decisions under uncertainty
• Accountability for high-stakes decisions

Key risk signals from dealmakers:

• 45% say signing a deal should always remain a human decision .
• 27% are not using AI for board-level reporting at all .
• PwC explicitly flags that while AI accelerates diligence and valuation, human judgment still matters and is not being replaced .
• Bain's report emphasizes that AI adoption requires strong governance frameworks to avoid introducing errors or security vulnerabilities at scale .

What This Means for the Future of M&A

The Skroutz sale is the most prominent known case of a PE firm replacing investment bankers with AI to run a full sell-side process. The deal closed successfully, but the industry-wide data makes clear that AI in M&A is not yet — and may never be — a full replacement for human judgment. The technology excels at data processing, sourcing, and screening. It struggles with negotiation, trust assessment, and high-stakes accountability. For now, the firms that win are likely to be the ones that combine AI's speed and scale with rigorous human oversight and strong governance.