Fintech firm Brex’s recently announced plans to sell itself for over $5 billion may have surprised some observers, but based on recent CEO research by EY, it could just be a sign of the year to come.
A recent survey by EY shows that many American chief executives are poised to chase more mergers and acquisitions in 2026. In a survey of 320 U.S. CEOs, 62% of respondents said they plan to “actively” pursue M&A deals over the next 12 months.
In a news release issued Monday, EY officials noted that the figure is up from 35% from a similar survey conducted in September 2025. The findings come from a broader survey of 1,200 CEOs around the world, and, notably, the American set appears more bullish on M&A than the survey set at large, with 53% of all respondents saying they plan to pursue such deals this year.
In an email to CFO.com, Josh Putnam, EY-Parthenon’s global and Americas corporate finance leader, said that “even now, pursuing growth through M&A isn’t a given but must be earned.”
“For finance chiefs, this is a clear signal to pressure-test their companies’ readiness to grow,” he said.
Putnam said CFOs and their teams should prepare for growth by assessing capital effectiveness, improving capital efficiency and adopting a “tailored” approach. “Instead of distributing resources uniformly, teams should direct capital toward the highest-return opportunities,” he said. “Underperforming areas of the business must be either improved or exited entirely.”
The anonymous online survey, administered by EY’s Parthenon consulting arm in November and December 2025, also tracks with the general sentiment on Wall Street, where executives are taking advantage of a deregulation-focused administration while also enduring its mercurial whims.
Based on EY’s report, it appears chief executives are feeling that tension and responding accordingly. For instance, 85% of U.S. respondents said they have altered their strategic investment plans for the year due to “geopolitical and trade policy developments.” Those alterations don’t necessarily seem to be a bad thing across the board, with 46% of respondents saying they have “accelerated a planned investment.” Still, 39% of respondents said they delayed such an investment, and another 11% have stopped an investment entirely due to “global tensions.”
CEOs’ M&A push came after a significant uptick in activity last year. According to EY’s research, deal volume grew 13.8% year over year to 1,734 in 2025, while deal value surged 56.4% to $2.67 trillion.
Meanwhile, “transformation,” which may already be on track to become one of the most uttered words in business this year, remains top of mind for most American respondents. EY found that 97% of CEOs were “currently undergoing or planning a significant enterprise-wide transformation initiative.”
And, of course, no discussion about corporate transformation would be complete without addressing the topic du jour in tech: artificial intelligence. Forty-four percent of U.S. respondents said that accelerated adoption of AI is the “single biggest positive factor for their company’s growth in 2026.”
It bears noting that it’s still not entirely clear what effect AI will have on growth over the long term. The nascent technology, while promising for some use cases, still requires hours of rework by employees due to faulty outputs. But American CEOs surveyed by EY are bullish no less, with 91% of them seeing artificial intelligence as “a transformative force reshaping value creation, operations, and/or business success.”
Other recent surveys point to similar sentiments. For instance, a global survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group found that companies expect to double their investment on AI this year.
