Over the last 2 years, interest in generative AI has skyrocketed thanks to the launch of AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. Professionals and clients alike are increasingly demanding that their firms embrace this new technology — so what’s holding firms back from doing so?
According to the Intapp 2024 Tech Perceptions Survey, nearly 60% of surveyed professionals use AI tools in their personal lives to help them be more productive — and 91% want to use AI at work for the same reason. They believe AI will help them as individuals, and their firms more broadly, in a number of ways.
For example, surveyed professionals estimate AI will save them an average of 25 hours a week on tasks like data entry and document generation. This will give them more time to focus on professional development and higher-level work, so they can provide better service to clients.
Many firm leaders are also optimistic about the ways AI will increase efficiency and accelerate growth across their teams, and have started investing in AI technology. In fact, as Goldman Sachs reports, it’s estimated that AI investments will amount to around $200 billion globally by 2025.
But not everyone is equally enthusiastic about generative AI technology. Some firm leaders are worried about the return on investment for these tools, fearing that they’re spending too much money and seeing too little benefit. They also worry that they won’t see the impact of these benefits in a timely manner.
A market opportunity for vertical AI providers
Largely due to concerns about ROI, AI adoption at firms has remained fairly modest. In June 2024, only 23% of U.S. professionals services firms and 11% of U.S. financial services firms were using AI.
“Most industries are completely underserved with AI,” said Nikolaus Grefe, Director of Product Strategy and Growth at Intapp, during a recent session at the AI and Data Summit by Bitkom. “That’s the market opportunity for vertical Saas and, ultimately, vertical AI businesses.”
That’s because underserved industries like professional and financial services benefit more from industry-specific, vertical SaaS and AI solutions than from generic, horizontal AI tools. Unlike generic AI solutions — which are designed for companies selling goods — vertical solutions reflect partner-led firms’ unique business models and workflows, and are designed to handle complex relationship networks, security requirements, and other industry-specific needs.
Dominik Ziems, Senior Manager of M&A at KPMG, spoke with Nikolaus Grefe during the session about how much his own team struggled before adopting vertical solutions.
“We spent millions on [a horizontal] company for more than 5 years, [but] the horizontal approach wasn’t really working,” Ziems explained. His team members couldn’t easily track their many complex deals within the CRM, slowing down their already heavy workflow. They also couldn’t source deals quickly, and they risked falling behind their competitors as a result.
To address those shortcomings, KPMG decided to abandon its horizontal CRM and adopt the leading CRM in financial and professional services: Intapp DealCloud.
The DealCloud advantage
DealCloud is a vertical deal and relationship management platform specifically designed for financial and professional services firms like KPMG. Firms can use Intapp Assist for DealCloud — which embeds generative AI capabilities directly within the DealCloud platform — to deliver actionable insights, minimize manual tasks, and help M&A teams with pipeline management and contact tracking.
With AI-driven innovation at its core, DealCloud empowers professionals through its advanced capabilities:
Zero entry Automatically capture data from DealCloud interactions and integrated third-party sources
- Summarization Automatically generate deal, relationship, and activity summaries
- Generative AI Autofill form fields and draft relevant, personalized email outreach
- Recommendation Access curated target company recommendations, real-time relationship signals with network insights, and industry news
- Conversational query Use everyday language to find the answers you need within DealCloud
Using these features, KPMG has enhanced its entire M&A workflow, allowing all M&A team members to efficiently perform their various tasks:
- Partners use AI-generated lead predictions and automated dashboards to help them source deals.
- Managers use AI-driven relationship intelligence to improve outreach and automate reporting.
- Analysts use AI-generated market summaries and peer group analysis when researching deals, as well as AI-driven insights, data summaries and analyses, email tracking, and document redaction.
KPMG will also be able to further improve their data stack thanks to Intapp’s recent acquisition of delphai, a software company specializing in applied AI for firmographic data automation, structuring, and intelligence. This integration of Intapp and delphai technology will help firms like KPMG combine internal and third-party data to build stronger data foundations.
The true value of vertical AI
Since adopting DealCloud, KPMG’s professionals — and KPMG itself — have saved significant resources. Partners, managers, and analysts save an estimated total of 72 hours per month on tasks like lead sorting, outreach, and research, in turn saving the firm about €34,000 per month.
DealCloud has also provided KPMG with more transparency into their data, allowing its professionals to provide quicker and better service to their clients.
“We collect a lot of data points,” explained Ziems. “And we need the support from vertical AI to understand our deals and make sense of our meetings … [With Intapp, this information] is at our fingertips when we need it.”
As AI continues to grow more prominent in the financial and professional services industries, firms must start embracing this technology to avoid falling behind their competitors. By investing in vertical AI, your firm will be better positioned to address its unique needs, improve efficiency, and increase profitability.
Want to learn more about the benefits of vertical AI platforms? Watch the full session from the AI and Data Summit by Bitkom,“From horizontal to vertical AI: Present and future applications in M&A.”