M&ANov 4, 2026, 08:00 UTC

Sign of the times: buyers are now pricing AI deployment firms like software companies

What's happening? Acquirers are paying software-style prices for AI services and deployment firms. In an analysis published on 4 November 2026, Nikola Lazarov maps 862 AI deployment firms and 435 acquisitions in the space, and finds the multiples look nothing like traditional IT services, where deals typically clear at 1-4x revenue.

The deals: AMD bought Finnish AI lab Silo AI for $665M in 2024, roughly 29x revenue by Lazarov's estimate. Accenture agreed in January 2026 to acquire London-based Faculty (completed in March; terms undisclosed, reportedly around $1B). Lazarov puts that at about 18x revenue, or roughly $2.5M per Faculty employee against Accenture's own ~$91k revenue per employee. Even TCS's $700M purchase of Salesforce partner Coastal Cloud came in at about 5.3x revenue. In May 2026 OpenAI agreed to acquire Tomoro as the founding acquisition of its new OpenAI Deployment Company; Lazarov reports Tomoro runs above 40% margins, versus 20% or less at most IT services firms. Anthropic's Ode is also buying.

Why it matters: According to Lazarov's data, no deal in the category exceeded $305M before July 2024; eight deals of $525M or more have happened since. He counts 109 deals last year and 96 closed or announced so far this year, with Accenture alone doing 31 deals across 15 countries. Model labs and the largest integrators are now competing for the same scarce pool of engineers who can put AI into production.

Sources: Nikola Lazarov on LinkedIn; aideploymentfirms.com; Accenture; TCS; OpenAI; Financial Times on AMD / Silo AI. Revenue multiples, margins and deal counts are from Lazarov's analysis.