The design ideas landing in Bob Bennett’s inbox have gotten a lot stranger: floating parts and too-fragile pieces that defy basic laws of gravity.
As the owner of Bennett Awards, which manufactures “deal toys” that bankers use to commemorate transactions, Bennett is keeping busy during this blockbuster year for dealmaking— and sorting through a new boom in AI-generated designs.
Demand for deal toys, which are handed out after a transaction goes through, often rises alongside dealmaking, which has surged this year, according to LSEG data. In the first half of 2026, the value of global M&A deals reached $2.83 trillion, up 49% from last year, though the number of actual deals was down 9%. A similar pattern holds true for IPOs: there were $170 billion worth of IPOs in the first half of the year, up an astonishing 246%, but 2.5% fewer IPOs in total.
Chatter about mega IPOs continues to dominate, between SpaceX’s historic market debut in June and Anthropic’s recent hires ahead of an anticipated public listing as soon as this fall.
Bennett said that deal toys now account for one-third of his business, compared to less than 5% a few years ago. Altrum, an industry leader, has worked with banks on more than 10,000 transactions in the past 12 months, said Peter Nieberg, the global head of the investment banking market. Jimmy Izquierdo, the CEO of GoLucites, said he gets between 80 and 105 new leads each month and closes around 70% of them.
A person familiar with the process of designing details at a top Wall Street bank said they’re no longer standard in every transaction, but only made at the client’s request — even so, they said most M&A clients request a tchotchke. Nieberg said that the larger the deal, the more important the deal toy, which may explain why manufacturers’ business is up in a year with more big deals, but fewer deals overall.
AI is changing the game
Beyond driving huge dealmaking, the AI economy is also transforming how toy makers are pitched.
In the past, analysts or associates on Wall Street would reach out to deal toy makers at the end of a transaction to discuss the design. The more creatively minded might come up with a few stylistic ideas or a sense of what the piece should convey. Yet this year, more and more of those initial emails include sometimes dozens of AI-generated designs.
“There are no hand-drawn sketches anymore. It’s just AI,” Izquierdo said. He’s had bankers send him 20 design ideas, which can make the process more overwhelming.
In some ways, the suggestions are helpful — they can set a general design direction or speed up the process. Often, though, the ideas can’t actually be manufactured or are completely unrealistic given cost constraints and production timelines. Bennett said he has had to change almost every idea “for manufacturability in the real world.”
Nieberg said that while AI encourages greater creativity, it can be challenging to balance the client’s ideas with the realities of production.
“What’s changed, I’d say the last 12 to 18 months, is analysts and associates are coming with more creative ideas, and then it’s our job to bring them to life,” Nieberg said. “That’s where you need the right skills and expertise, because there’s 50-plus years of production feasibility and cost knowledge, and there’s ChatGPT.”
All of the deal toy makers that Business Insider spoke to are still using human designers — as Bennett sees it, the best designs include imperfections that AI would never think of — but have no problem riffing on clients’ chatbot ideas when it makes sense.
Last month, a boutique M&A firm reached out to Izquierdo with an AI-generated design. Save swapping stone for granite in one spot, the final deal toy was almost an exact replica of the AI image.
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