Innovation in M&A

It seems the rate of industrial change is accelerating due to new technologies or more simply new ways of approaching problems. I feel like the world is becoming more 'engineered'. The huge amounts of data generated by social apps and devices are being analysed in novel ways that go way beyond the top scientific understanding. You've got HFTs manipulating markets with algos, private space companies launching next-gen satellite comms networks, computer programs that are replacing financial intermediaries, and early stage AI that is independently learning to beat complex video games, communicate and control hardware in ways that their programmers can't even understand.

M&A on the other hand is very much a low-tech field. At the analyst level the work generally involves collating market data to be regurgitated onto a powerpoint slide, or transforming historical information (usually outdated) into a set of forecasts and producing a set of outputs that are usually subjective or incorrect. As you get more senior the work becomes more about your ability to socialise, build relationships and convince decision makers which is a skill set that hasn't really evolved since the early humans. We still use a goddamn linear regression model to generate discount rates. This might be a gross exaggeration to prove my point, the exception being the top bankers who are able to innovate novel deal structures to fit a particular set of circumstances, or create financial derivatives that effect transfers of securities to achieve a set of M&A objectives.

Having been through various M&A processes over the years across a few different industry groups, I am yet to see anything resembling the sorts of technological innovations or even modifications to established working practices that we're seeing in other sectors. Investment banks pride themselves on hiring intelligent and motivated people, so why don't we have any new analytical tools that go beyond microsoft office and economic theories from the 70s? Why is the hierarchical structure at banks so rigid when tech companies have proven network style teams are so much more efficient?

Have you guys seen any recent examples of innovation in the M&A space? Or am I just at the wrong shop?