Axios Live: AI is driving massive capital in deals, experts say

AI's value dominated conversations about the dealmaking landscape at a virtual Axios Live event this week.

Why it matters: The artificial intelligence gold rush is driving high-value tech sector deals and a sunny forecast for 2026, even as concerns swirl around macroeconomic uncertainty and a possible AI bubble.

• Axios' Lucinda Shen and George Moriarty spoke with Shan Shan, investment manager for private companies at Baillie Gifford; Battery Ventures general partner Marcus Ryu; and Insight Partners managing director George Mathew at the event, sponsored by Cooley.

What they're saying: "The first half of 2025, we saw almost $80 billion deployed in venture growth. And if you kind of analyze that … $160 billion deployed in our land. That is actually surpassing the 2021 peak," Gifford said, with a few nuances worth noting.

• There's a huge amount of concentration of 40% to 50% of those dollars in a handful of companies, she said.
• Also, "there's a little bit of a shift because of everything we're seeing in the industries of preference. So AI not only brought a lot of attention to the foundation model companies but also the upstreams and downstreams."

State of play: "I think the single biggest risk is whether … AI will generate the kind of scale of consumer and enterprise value that it will require to justify the approximately trillion dollars of capital expenditure that's gone in so far and the multiple trillions that are anticipated to go in," Ryu said.

What's next: AI investing is expected to shift from what it has been over the last five years, now that the groundwork's been done, Mathew said.

• "Going forward, it's super clear that now that we have a lot of this infrastructure in place, the focus really needs to be on finding those either vertical-specific opportunities or domain-specific opportunities," Mathew said.

Content from the sponsored segment:

In a View From the Top conversation, Cooley partner Ben Beerle explained why he is optimistic that high deal activity will continue into 2026.

• "I think we're about 20% to 25% up year over year on billion-dollar plus deals … and with the macroeconomy kind of staying steady, we're expecting that trend to continue into 2026," he said.