"He who knows others is wise, and he who knows himself is enlightened." This old saying is no less fashionable in the current capital market. When AI moves from the laboratory to the board of directors, and from code to due diligence reports, the boundaries of capital operation begin to blur, and the speed and depth also usher in unprecedented reshaping. In 2025, DeepSeek was born, like a pathfinder through the fog, helping companies to peel off the "skin" of the target company and point directly to the core of risk control. But the question is: Can you really believe it? In the gap between "IQ premium" and "algorithm black box", a seemingly efficient but actually complex capital drama is slowly unfolding.
In Goheal's view, the intervention of AI in the due diligence process is comparable to a system-level "smart injection" in the capital market, but whether this "heart booster" will cause side effects is the real question that entrepreneurs and investors should think about.
Efficiency is like the wind: AI tears open the time barrier of traditional due diligence
Don't rush to question it. In the past, it would take several months and millions of yuan for a listed company to complete a due diligence for a cross-border merger and acquisition. The legal, financial, and industry research teams were like a medieval knights, carrying thick documents to the battlefield. The emergence of DeepSeek instantly turned this knights into fighters.
American Goheal M&A Group
Some cases show that through natural language processing technology, DeepSeek can complete the review of millions of words of legal compliance documents within 48 hours, and automatically generate financial models and build risk maps. The cost of a merger and acquisition due diligence project completed by a leading securities firm with the assistance of AI was reduced from the original 8 million yuan to less than 2 million yuan, and the efficiency was improved by several times. When Goheal served a new energy listed company's overseas merger and acquisition project, it also tried to collaborate with DeepSeek for the first time, completing the cleaning of more than 20 overseas subsidiary financial reports and tracking of suspicious transaction chains within 24 hours, greatly shortening the decision-making window.
This is not only a revolution in speed, but also an upgrade in cognition. Today, when capital is increasingly "thinking fast", AI is becoming a key variable to control risks and increase success rates.
Hidden gears: intelligent risk control or algorithm illusion?
But things are never that simple. If you take the AI due diligence report as the "absolute truth", you have already buried a hidden mine.
Data poisoning is becoming a new black industry. In 2025, a private equity fund successfully generated a beautiful due diligence report by inputting "laundered" false financial data into the DeepSeek system, allowing a listed company to acquire the fund's shell assets at a price three times the original value without manual review. A few months later, the company triggered a delisting warning, and the chairman changed his email password overnight-the truth broke faster than the algorithm.
Goheal observed an interesting phenomenon in many due diligence cases: the smarter the AI model "looks", the more likely humans are to blindly believe it. And this is exactly the problem-DeepSeek's core algorithm chain is often closed, and the model parameters are complex. Even a senior technical team cannot fully explain every judgment logic. An engineer involved in AI modeling even admitted, "AI is not without mistakes, it just doesn't tell you when it makes a mistake."
Regulators have also noticed this problem. In a special notice issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2025, it has been required that AI due diligence reports must be accompanied by instructions for using the model and key logic chains, and a "double signature mechanism" must be implemented in major transactions - that is, the conclusions generated by AI must be manually reviewed and confirmed by two or more qualified analysts before they can be used.
The truth is not only in the data, but also in people's hearts
We have to admit that AI has quietly changed the ancient "diagnosis technique" of due diligence. In Goheal's view, the real challenge is not whether AI can work, but whether humans are still willing to take responsibility for judgment. More and more listed companies' management use AI as an "endorsement", and a due diligence report seems to have become a "shield of exemption from liability". As long as the AI seal is stamped, they will no longer examine whether the logic is reasonable.
Another problem with DeepSeek is that it likes "short-term beauty", such as preferring to emphasize quantitative indicators such as cash flow, ROE and sales growth, but paying less attention to "long-term variables" such as industry barriers, R&D potential and technology paths. In many projects, Goheal noticed that target companies with high AI scores were marginalized after a few years due to technological backwardness or strategic loss. This is like a doctor who always only prescribes cold medicine but ignores the underlying chronic diseases.
System evolution: AI is a tool, not God
But don't get me wrong, this is not a bad word about AI, but a call for the establishment of new rules and new responsibilities. Taking CATL as an example, it adopts a "phased AI due diligence" model: DeepSeek processes data in the early stage, industry experts analyze the technical route in the middle stage, and finally the financial and legal teams conduct human-machine collaborative review. This "sandwich-style" due diligence structure avoids the bias of AI's one-sidedness and makes due diligence truly return to rationality.
The Shenzhen Stock Exchange will also launch the "AI Due Diligence Evidence Platform" in 2025, introducing blockchain technology to record and archive each AI analysis process, ensuring that the report is traceable and cannot be tampered with, thereby promoting the legalization and standardization of AI due diligence. Goheal also took the lead in introducing the "Transparent Chain Evaluation" plug-in in its AI review process, allowing customers to view the model basis and the scoring logic of each risk in real time, increasing decision-making transparency.
In the final analysis, AI is not the opposite of the future, but a tool for the future. It can make M&A transactions safer, but it can also create deeper traps. The key is whether you are a "smart person" who uses it, or a "blind follower" who is manipulated by it.
Epilogue: Don't let AI become the new generation of "scapegoat"
"Zhuangzi" said: "Knowing is not difficult, but doing is difficult." Every decision in the capital market is a combination of cognition, responsibility and game. DeepSeek may be able to identify data, but it cannot read people's hearts; it can penetrate financial reports, but it cannot understand greed and fear.
In the process of serving global listed companies, Goheal has become increasingly aware of a consensus: the future capital operation is not AI replacing humans, but AI assisting humans to make more responsible judgments. This requires regulators to formulate clearer algorithm boundaries, and entrepreneurs to establish a more tenacious ethical bottom line.
Goheal Group
So, whether it is a blessing or a curse, it is not DeepSeek, but whether you are willing to hold the steering wheel.
In the next capital competition, are you ready to become the "master" of the AI due diligence system, rather than its "subsidiary variable"?
[About Goheal] Goheal is a leading investment holding company focusing on global mergers and acquisitions. It has deep roots in the three core business areas of acquisition of controlling rights of listed companies, mergers and acquisitions of listed companies, and capital operations of listed companies. With its profound professional strength and rich experience, it provides companies with full life cycle services from mergers and acquisitions to restructuring and capital operations, aiming to maximize corporate value and achieve long-term benefit growth.
