Goldman’s tech summit swirls with talk of record 2025 deals

Tech CEOs, investors, analysts, and even bankers descending on San Francisco this week for one of the industry’s biggest gatherings are buzzing about the possibility that 2025 could become a record year for deals.

That optimism marks a sharp reversal from just six months ago, when President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden tariff announcement rattled markets and stoked recession fears.

The occasion is Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Communacopia & Technology Conference 2025, opening Monday at the Palace Hotel. The tech event has long served as both a stage for companies to lay out priorities and a proving ground for executives seeking to defend or drum up support for major mergers.

Dealmakers flood San Francisco as optimism returns

Roughly 260 firms are slated to present, including Meta Platforms Inc., fresh off its $14.3 billion bet on Scale AI Inc.; Salesforce Inc., which in May struck its biggest deal since 2020 with Informatica Inc.; and Nvidia Corp., which just last week snapped up startup Solver Inc. in a multimillion-dollar agreement. 

According to Bloomberg data, such transactions have pushed technology dealmaking to $645 billion year-to-date, the strongest pace since 2021’s post-pandemic boom that generated nearly $1 trillion in deals. Counting communications and media, the broader sector has already notched $822 billion in activity.

Big-ticket moves this year include Palo Alto Networks Inc.’s $25 billion takeover of CyberArk Software Ltd., Thoma Bravo’s $12.3 billion buyout of Dayforce Inc., and CommScope Holding Co.’s $10.5 billion asset sale to Amphenol Corp.

The driving force now is the artificial intelligence arms race. Meta and Elon Musk’s xAI Corp. are pouring billions into data centers. At the same time, major software companies face mounting pressure to use M&A as a defensive strategy against AI-driven disruption, according to dealmakers.

“There will be transactions that defy our imagination within the broader AI spectrum,” said Andrew Woeber, Barclays Plc’s head of M&A. “Don’t be surprised to see a $100 billion-plus deal within the next year. Big platforms are going to make big bets.”

Goldman forecasts that the momentum won’t stop at tech: it expects 2026 to deliver record-breaking global dealmaking, with activity climbing as high as $3.9 trillion, eclipsing the $3.6 trillion set in 2021.

The firm has recently added a recruit that doesn’t eat, sleep, or draw a paycheck: an AI engineer called Devin. According to reports, the AI software engineer was created by Cognition, a startup founded in 2023 and backed by billionaire investors like Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale.

Devin was unveiled last year in demo clips that showed it completing real software engineering tasks, full stack, from start to finish, with little need for human input. Goldman’s Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti says the bank is preparing to roll out hundreds of Devins across its workforce.

Goldman warns of AI’s growing impact on jobs

Still, Goldman’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius, highlighted the broader shifts AI drives in the labor market. In a recent report, he noted that the tech sector’s share of U.S. employment peaked in November 2022—the same month ChatGPT was released, before slipping back below its long-term trend.

Young tech workers in particular bore the brunt of the downturn. The unemployment rate for workers aged 20 to 30 in the industry has shot up by almost three percentage points since early 2024; that is more than four times the increase in the overall unemployment rate.

The spike is interpreted as a sign that generative AI is starting to replace white-collar jobs, with those early into their careers bearing the brunt of this transition. Goldman estimates that generative AI could eventually replace 6–7% of the U.S. workforce, with the transition playing out over the next decade. The firm estimates that the peak unemployment effect will be limited to about half a percentage point, as workers displaced from other industries will likely find jobs in other fields.

The report comes amid increased concern about weakness in the labor market. According to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy added just 73,000 jobs in July, well below the 106,000 that economists expected. May and June’s job growth was also significantly revised downward.

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