RBC Capital says these software companies are the most likely to be acquired as AI eats the world (www.businessinsider.com)

RBC Capital told clients that AI-driven disruption has depressed valuations across the software sector, creating a “rare” opportunity for opportunistic buyers: software M&A is up ~78% this year and private-equity deal volume has more than doubled. The bank published a list of plausible takeover targets—companies with solid customer bases and cash flow but weak AI narratives—saying private equity (less tied to quarterly pressures) or strategic acquirers could take them private, reset expectations, and rebuild them for an AI-first world. Regulatory scrutiny may limit mega-cap strategic deals, but RBC expects momentum to accelerate as sentiment stabilizes and valuations stay depressed. The list reads like a map of assets that matter to AI/ML infrastructure and product stacks: Confluent (real-time data streaming), Elastic (search + GenAI momentum), GitLab (developer security/GenAI dev tools), Qualys/Varonis/Rapid7 (security and governance), Teradata (cloud analytics), Fastly (edge compute), and CCaaS/collaboration plays like Five9, Zoom and ZoomInfo, among others. For the AI/ML community this signals likely consolidation of datasets, deployment infrastructure, model-integration features and talent—speeding productization and tighter platform integrations, but also concentrating control of data and tooling in fewer hands.